Uber Eats: decide whether to build two-restaurant orders in one checkout, and how

You are a product manager on Uber Eats. A recent survey found that a majority of users would like to put items from two different restaurants into a single order: for example, one dish from Restaurant A and another from Restaurant B, checked out together. Would you build this? If yes, explain how you would go about it. If not, explain why not and what you would do instead. ```hint Treat the survey as a starting point A survey records what people say they want. Think about what you could find in today's order data that would confirm the need, and about what a combined order asks of the restaurants and couriers, not only of the customer. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Who answered the survey and how was it worded: did it ask about a hypothetical feature, or about a problem people already work around today? - What should the feature serve first: more orders and larger baskets, customer retention, or profit per order? - Do the two restaurants have to be near each other and the customer, and does everything need to arrive in a single drop-off? - Can one courier collect from both restaurants, or may the order be split across two couriers? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A build-or-don't-build decision that tests the survey against behavioral evidence and a stated goal - Effects on every side of the marketplace: customers, restaurants, couriers and the unit economics of a delivery - If building, a scoped first version that handles the hard operational parts: which restaurants can be combined, pickup routing, prep timing, fees, tracking and partial-order problems - Success metrics that capture incremental value rather than orders shifted from one form to another, with guardrails on delivery time, food quality and courier earnings - A rollout and experiment plan that accounts for couriers being shared across all orders in a market ### Follow-up Questions - An experiment shows most combined orders replace two separate orders the customer would have placed anyway, and delivery-fee revenue per customer falls. Do you keep the feature? - How would you set the delivery fee for a two-restaurant order, and how would you explain the feature to the restaurants involved? - The courier has collected the first restaurant's food, but the second restaurant is running late. What should happen for the customer, the courier and the food already picked up?