Visa and Uber are partnering to offer local merchants a piece of the action. Starting on the West Coast, this promotional offer will give Uber riders loyalty points when using their Visa card at local merchants, as the following article relates.
Visa Inc V recently joined forces with Uber Technologies Inc. to enable customers to enjoy discounted ride and avail benefits from other merchants tied up with Uber, simply by transacting with Visa credit card.
Uber Local Offers is powered by the Visa Commerce Network, which was launched by the insurer in Jan 2016. The network was introduced to provide merchants with a way to create new customer experiences to grow sales and build loyalty. The Visa Commerce Network helps to connect transactions between two merchants registered on Visa’s payment network. These offers drive value for merchants by providing consumer incentives to transact with Visa merchants in exchange for content or services offered by a publisher. This creates a network of consumers, merchants and publishers that add value to each other by using the platform of the Visa network to connect and transact.
Uber already has a vivid and robust network of local merchants. The partnership with Visa has further facilitated the company to broaden, engage and retain its customer base. Bar-B-Que, Mixt Greens, Peet’s Coffee, PizzaRev and many more merchants are already part of Uber’s Local Offer List. A recent survey revealed that Uber customers who Visa cards have spent more than $144 billion per year in physical stores with $2 billion spent in local businesses. The Local Offers option has been incorporated into the Uber application so that riders can find easily the fine-tuned list of places to visit for shopping, dining and other entertainments as well as avail free rides.
This collaboration represents a dynamic cross-selling, loyalty play as Uber, Visa, and merchants all benefit. Since most urban riders use Uber to do shopping or dining, why not promote Visa card use to drive more business to them. Meanwhile, Uber ridership and Visa payment transactions increase. What could be simpler? Let’s see how the numbers play out as this program goes forward in LA and San Francisco. But expect to find more of these multi-player payment/loyalty promotions pop up as card networks and issuers position for higher mobile wallet penetration.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Associate Director, Research Services at Mercator Advisory Group
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