What’s next for Instacart?
When the pandemic hit the U.S. last year, San Francisco-based grocery delivery company Instacart suddenly became a lifeline for millions of consumers.
“We saw five years of growth packed into one year,” Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said.
Demand has waned this year but remains above pre-pandemic levels.
Instacart — which offers delivery from 55,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada through its 500,000 contract workers — is also trying to expand in other ways, like offering advertising services and non-grocery delivery from retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Simo, a former executive at Facebook, joined Instacart’s board in February and took over as CEO in August. As the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of fishermen, she says Instacart appealed to her because its mission is feeding people.
Simo spoke with The Associated Press about Instacart’s future.
How would you describe the changes Instacart has seen over the last 18 months?
This industry is very interesting, because grocery is one of the largest segments of commerce but it’s only 10% penetrated online. And we think over the next five years, it’s going to get to 20%, 30%, like most other commerce segments. I would say that, before the pandemic, many people weren’t even aware that a service like ours existed. And that has been changed forever. We are seeing that many people are now making it part of the way they run their household.
Instacart is facing a lot of competition. Uber Eats and DoorDash have recently added grocery partners, for example. How will Instacart remain the U.S. market leader for grocery delivery?
You know, any attractive market will always attract a lot of competition. And to a certain extent, I’m glad that there’s a lot of attention on online grocery right now, because that’s making this behavior just much more democratized. I would say that in terms of the competition, what we’re focused on is really being the best partner to all retailers. That’s why pretty much all of the top retailers are on our platform. And that matters enormously, because when you talk to customers about what they care about when it comes to buying online, they care enormously about selection and they care enormously about their loyalty to particular retailers. And so our positioning is very, very different from that of our competitors.
Prior to Instacart, you spent a decade leading development and strategy for the Facebook app. What lessons from Facebook are you bringing to Instacart?
I’ve always been fascinated by complex marketplaces. Facebook was one and certainly Instacart is one as well, a four-sided marketplace between all consumers, shoppers, retailers and food brands. And I think this ability to think in terms of ecosystems and how to balance all the sides of the marketplace that I learned at Facebook is serving me well at this job.