Café cops $30k hit after UberEats wipes data

A Sydney cafe owner has claimed he has had $30,000 wiped from his business by UberEats, with the prospect he could be down $120,000 this year alone.

When James Townend bought the Europan cafe and bakery in Rose Bay earlier this year, he did not anticipate how the change of ownership would affect the establishment’s online review ranking.

“When I bought the business it was pretty standard stuff, but a decent part of the purchase price was tied up in goodwill,” Townend told news.com.au.

“These days goodwill is not just customers walking through your door but also customers buying through UberEats.”

Townend says the process of informing Google and Facebook of the ownership change was straightforward, but not so with UberEats, which he described as “really convoluted, really dark”.

When it was eventually lodged with the delivery company, he says his delivery sales plummeted.

“My business doesn’t list on the front page when you’re looking for somewhere in Rose Bay. All the other businesses have ratings and mine doesn’t,” he said. 

He claims UberEats told him it was because he was a new business, so all the old data that had been built up over three years had been erased.

“It’s quite a stitch-up, taking the goodwill you’ve purchased and eradicating the value,” he said.

When he contacted UberEats, he was told it’s “because you’re new”.

UberEats said they “encourage all of our restaurant partners to reach out to us to address any concerns or issues they may be having”.

“We will work to resolve these with them,” an UberEats spokeswoman said. “We want to support restaurants and welcome their feedback to help us improve our service.”

Sheridan Randall, 27^th August 2019