Wegmans expands delivery service
San Francisco-based Instacart is providing grocery deliveries from locations in the region
The region’s grocery shoppers have a new option for picking up weekly supplies: their mobile phones or home computers.
Instacart, the San Franciscobased on-demand grocery delivery service, and Wegmans Food Markets have expanded their same-day grocery delivery service to select stores in southeastern Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, and southern New Jersey. The service allows Wegmans customers to complete their grocery shopping online, and have their orders delivered to their doors in as little as an hour, the companies said in announcing the service was officially going live on Wednesday.
Same-day delivery from Wegmans is now offered at the Montgomeryville, Collegeville, Warrington, King of Prussia, Malvern, Concordville, and Downingtown stores in southeastern Pennsylvania; the Allentown, Bethlehem, and Nazareth stores in the Lehigh Valley; and the Mt. Laurel and Cherry Hill Stores in New Jersey. Customers can visit instacart.wegmans.com and enter their zip code to determine if they are within the
Wegmans delivery area.
Since June, the Rochester, New York-based Wegmans has worked with Instacart in the Washington, D.C., area as well as suburbs in northern Virginia, Maryland and Boston to offer grocery deliveries.
Instacart is a fairly popular startup that does delivery for a wide variety of retailers, noted Ernest Baskin, assistant professor of food marketing at Saint Joseph’s University.
“They also allow the retailer to control pricing on the platform,” Baskin said. “Acme, CVS, BJs and Whole Foods currently have partnerships as well as a variety of other retailers.”
A quick check of their website shows Instacart has
delivery service for various retailers in many – but not all – areas of the region.
Peapod at Giant, Freshdirect and GoPuff, with no brick and mortar locations, and Shoprite at Home are just a few of the competitors in the added convenience space, the assistant St. Joe’s professor noted.
“There is a fairly large portion of consumers who demand convenience, and these delivery services cater to that,” Baskin said.
Instacart said its first delivery is always free for new customers. Prices start $5.99 after that on orders of $35 or more. The company also has annual fee arrangements available. In addition, Wegmans adds a small price increase to cover the cost of the program, Instacart said.
With the new service Wegmans customers can now fill their virtual carts with
all of their store’s products, including produce, meat, seafood, frozen foods and Wegmans’ line of chef-developed EZ Meals, by visiting instacart.wegmans. com or downloading the Instacart App. At the online checkout, customers can add their Wegmans Shoppers Club number to receive available discounts, and choose a delivery window within one hour, two hours, or up to seven days in advance. Instacart’s shoppers will do the rest.
One of those shoppers, Christina Hicks of Wilmington, Delaware, was in the Wegmans’ Malvern store Wednesday to demonstrate how the system works.
She receives a text message on her cellphone informing her when she has an assignment. It could be at any of the retailers Instacart serves with the region.
At some of the locations she shops for the customers and another employee delivers it. At other stores, like Wegmans, she does both.
The products a shopper wants are displayed on her cellphone, along with the aisles in which they can be found, Hicks explained. There are procedures to follow if a store is out of a product on the list or if she feels items like produce may not be up to a customer’s liking.
“I can call them or send them a text to ask them if they want me to get something else,” said Hicks, who was an Uber driver before going to work for Instacart. “Or, sometimes the app will suggest a replacement for” the out-of-stock product, and she can check with the customer to see if they would prefer that.
When she’s done shopping, Hicks goes through
the checkout like a regular customer and pays for the order with a debit card that’s been pre-loaded with the amount of the order. Most customers, she said, take the items at the door of their homes but some make arrangements to drop the groceries off at a neighbor’s or at work.
Hicks said that on a typical 2-9 p.m. shift at this point she does five or six pickup and deliveries. She works as a private contractor hired out by Instacart.
“In this area it’s fairly new but I think it’s catching on,” Hicks said.
Employees at Wegmans and Instacart were equally optimistic.
“We know our customers are busy, and that any found time in their week can make a difference. That’s where we can help – by giving them the option to have Wegmans delivered
fresh to their door,” said Heather Pawlowski, vice president of e-commerce for Wegmans. “By partnering with an industry leader like Instacart, we’re able to provide our customers with a seamless shopping experience with the quality and service they’ve come to expect from Wegmans, without leaving their house.”
Apoorva Mehta, CEO of Instacart, welcomed the technology company’s newest grocery chain.
“Wegmans is a brand with a loyal fan base,” Mehta said. “This partnership is a milestone for Instacart, allowing us to bring the products Wegmans customers love straight to their doorstep.”