We wrote about Uber when they first came to Wel­ling­ton so I’m not here to regur­git­ate the many cons (though this ‘game’ about the life of an Uber driver is worth a play, sim­il­ar to Action Sta­tion’s Pick A Path). The obvi­ous truth is that for pas­sen­gers, Uber is super con­veni­ent. Now there’s New Zea­l­and-based com­pet­i­tion in the form of Zoomy that offers the same con­veni­ence without the asso­ci­ated extremely prob­lem­at­ic Uber name.

“Loc­ally owned. Lower rates. Bet­ter ser­vice.

Zoomy is cur­rently avail­able in Auck­land & Wel­ling­ton. We built Zoomy on the belief that when drivers are treated bet­ter, they provide a bet­ter ser­vice.”

But how do they stack up?

I’ve been tak­ing Zoomy reg­u­larly for a couple of months now, and my ver­dict is: it stacks up pretty well. Here’s some loose thoughts as a review.

  • Zoomy used to say that their point of dif­fer­ence for pas­sen­gers was that they don’t go into surge. This is no longer true – when I went to get a ride to the opera from home, the Zoomy app told me I was look­ing at $14-$17. Mean­while there was no surge on Uber, and the ride cost me $9.
  • Con­versely, since Zoomy has shown up, Uber seems to be more likely to go into surge mode. Drivers can drive for both com­pan­ies, so it seems Uber is try­ing to defend its turf by char­ging  2.3 or even 3x.
  • Drivers for Zoomy need to have a pas­sen­ger license. In order to make the most money though (accord­ing to an Uber driver who was approached by Zoomy but declined), they also need to be registered for GST, which you might not be if you were just after some extra income.
  • Uber­’s net­work has had a couple of years to learn about best pickup points, so I’ve struggled with a couple of Zoomy pickups at the super­mar­ket – no I can­’t just come out of the car­park and cross the street with a shop­ping cart full of bottles and cat­food. More users will mean Zoomy learns bet­ter, because Uber was­n’t great at this at the start. But for now I have had some drivers can­cel on me after I’ve waited ages because they took the wrong turn.
  • Accord­ing to one of my Zoomy drivers, they’re topped up to $10 for all min­im­um fares (which are $5.95, same as Uber­’s except Uber also charges a 55 cent book­ing fee). I don’t under­stand how that can pos­sibly be a sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­el. Accord­ing to this 2015 art­icle half of Zoomy is owned by the rich­lister Spen­cer Fam­ily. I’m no busi­ness journ­al­ist so I have no idea where the money is com­ing from, or going to. When I ask drivers, they say they like that the money is going to an NZ com­pany. They don’t say that they’re mak­ing more than with Uber.
  • Many of your favour­ite Uber drivers are prob­ably driv­ing for Zoomy now as well – unfor­tu­nately your least favour­ites may be too, like the dude who’s like a vap­ing fedora come to life who man­ages to reek of cigar­ette smoke too. Cars are gen­er­ally the same as on Uber – mostly Prisues and those Honda hybrids with really low back seat roofs that ruin your hair. I don’t think the disco Uber is on Zoomy which is a bit sad.
  • Zoomy starts char­ging you when your car gets near you, so beware if your driver passes you by and goes around the block and then picks you up, because it will bring an extra charge. If you con­tact the team, you’ll get this returned to you.
  • Speak­ing of the sup­port team, they’ve upped their game in the past month or so. I had a bound­ar­ies issue with one of the drivers and they were nice about it and put in an exclu­sion so I won’t get that driver again. Don’t both­er try­ing to con­tact them on Twit­ter though because they haven’t updated since 2015.
  • I did­n’t write this review in order to get free stuff, BUT here’s my promo code if you want to start using Zoomy – I think you get $10 free and so do I –  X3R7UUD. You might also get a free code when you down­load the app, and keep an eye out for a 50% dis­count rate often advert­ised on Face­book.