Uber Gift Shop
From gift cards to actual gifts.
“What’s the gifting experience we really want to create, and how do we get there?”
That question turned a fix into a product vision with its own roadmap. We shipped both.
Previous UX
A couple of months earlier the team had launched gift cards on a peer-to-peer mechanic: the sender types in the recipient’s email address.
If that address had an Uber account behind it, the money landed in their Uber Cash. If it didn’t, they got an email with instructions to redeem.
Problem
A gift card is one of the few products that arrives in the hands of someone who isn’t a customer yet. Ours wasn’t converting anyone.
95% of non-Uber recipients never redeemed the card they were sent.
And we couldn’t see much past that number — not even whether the email had been opened.
Going old school
So the Money design team ran the whole thing by hand and wrote down what broke. Two things stood out.
- No code
-
The address was the key. Recipients had to redeem from the exact inbox the gift was sent to.
- That isn’t the mental model for a gift card. People expect a code.
- It might not be the address on their Uber account.
- Most people sign in with a phone number anyway.
- And the sender had to ask first, which kills the surprise.
- Hidden deadline
- The email never mentioned an expiry date. Recipients had seven days and no way of knowing it.
Hypothesis
By sending a gift card code on purchase, we can increase redemption for non-Uber recipients.
The fix
A code in the email — the mental model people already had. With the app installed, one tap redeemed it. Without it, the manual instructions were right there.
Detaching the gift from one specific address also gave people a choice. It’s their gift.
That solved redemption. Three things were still in the way.
One channel
Email was the only way to send a gift.
No feedback
Senders never found out whether it was opened, or redeemed.
Seven days
A short window, and no rationale behind it.
Going the extra mile
More ways to send
Interviews kept landing on messaging. It felt more personal, and in several markets it’s where peer-to-peer conversation actually happens. Email still made sense for the colleague you don’t know that well.
A feedback loop
Purchased gifts got a section of their own, with four states: sent, opened, redeemed, and still waiting. Which meant Uber Gifts finally needed a home screen — until then you landed straight in the form.
No expiry
We dropped the expiry date. If the recipient never redeemed, we’d tell the sender and give them a way to get their money back.
More miles
The home screen made room for seasonal cards. And we pulled from Uber’s illustration library to draw new ones.
From fix to vision
“What’s the gifting experience we really want to create, and how do we get there?”
Uber could deliver more than a balance top-up. Not just gifts — moments people remember when they’re apart. And every recipient is a rider or an eater we haven’t met yet.
So alongside the fixes we built the vision and pitched it to directors. They loved it.
Results
Three months later, with the new version still rolling out:
9%
lift in sales
18%
more value per card
15%
increase in redemption