Grocery delivery – Impact Lab

Coronavirus, Employment, Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Instacart is hiring 300,000 grocery shoppers

March 29, 2020

The company will provide with paid sick leave in case they’re diagnosed with COVID-19.

Instacart plans to hire an additional 300,000 “full-service” contractors to help it deliver groceries to people during the coronavirus pandemic. With so many individuals and families stuck inside as a result of social distancing measures and shelter in place orders in states like California, Instacart says order volume has increased by 150 percent over the last few weeks, with people buying more per cart as well.

The company currently operates in about 5,500 cities across the United States and Canada. Instacart’s plan will see it hire broadly in states like California and New York. In the former, for instance, it plans to bring on approximately 54,000 new full-time shoppers. In other states like Texas and Florida, it will hire thousands of new contractors as well, and provide them with paid sick leave if they’re diagnosed with COVID-19 or need to self-isolate.

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Amazon.com, Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Amazon is making two-hour grocery delivery free for all Prime members

November 8, 2019

Amazon just added a new perk to its popular Prime membership program: free grocery delivery.

Amazon Prime members will now be able to get two-hour grocery delivery for free.

Until now, Prime members had to pay an additional $14.99 per month to get access to Amazon Fresh, the company’s grocery delivery service.

The change reflects Amazon’s growing delivery efficiency, as it looks to shorten delivery time — which in turn leads to more frequent purchases and bigger spending.

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Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping, Uber

Uber moves into on-demand grocery delivery with acquisition of Cornershop

October 19, 2019

Uber is making moves into the highly competitive world of online grocery deliveries with the acquisition of a startup called Cornershop. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will bolster the company’s efforts to expand into businesses outside its core ride-hailing service.

Cornershop, founded in 2015, is currently active in Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Canada, and it’s headquartered in Santiago. In a statement, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company would seek to “scale their vision, and look forward to working with them to bring grocery delivery to millions of consumers on the Uber platform.” That will mean eventually launching the service in the US, though the deal is still subject to regulatory approval.

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Amazon.com, Food, Shopping

Most shoppers are still leery of buying their groceries online. But delivery in the US is set to ‘explode’

February 11, 2019

In the U.S., a mere 3 percent of grocery spending takes place online today.
A new study by Bain & Co. in collaboration with Google finds shoppers are still reluctant to try delivery services and often don’t stick with them.
But the firm predicts grocery delivery will ultimately take off as companies continue to invest in it.

Continue reading… “Most shoppers are still leery of buying their groceries online. But delivery in the US is set to ‘explode’”

Automation, Driverless vehicles, Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Kroger-owned grocery store begins fully driverless deliveries

December 27, 2018

Road-legal delivery vehicles don’t even have space for a human driver.

Nuro, a startup founded by two veterans of Google’s self-driving car project, has reached an important milestone: it has started making fully autonomous grocery deliveries on public streets.

Fry’s Food, a brand owned by grocery giant Kroger, launched a self-driving grocery delivery program back in August in partnership with Nuro. Fry’s has been using Nuro cars to deliver groceries to customers near one of its stores on East McDowell Road in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Automation, Business, Driverless vehicles, Food, Shopping

Startup inks ‘world’s largest deal’ for driverless grocery deliveries

September 27, 2018

Whether or not your grocery delivery arrives in a van with a driver behind the wheel may not matter much to you, but an increasing number of companies are nevertheless investing heavily in autonomous delivery vehicles in the belief that they’ll improve efficiency and create significant cost benefits in the long term. Yes, you’ll have to wait and see if those savings will be passed on to you, the customer.

Udelv, a San Francisco-based startup that has already used its autonomous vans to make more than 700 driverless deliveries in the San Francisco Bay area, recently inked what it claims is the world’s largest deal for a grocery delivery service using self-driving vehicles.

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Automation, Driverless vehicles, Food, Shopping

Kroger rolls out driverless cars for grocery deliveries

August 20, 2018

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — At a time when big-box retailers are trying to offer the same conveniences as their online competitors, the biggest U.S. grocery chain is testing the use of driverless cars to deliver groceries in a Phoenix suburb.

Kroger’s pilot program launched Thursday morning with a robotic vehicle parked outside one of its own Fry’s supermarkets in Scottsdale. A store clerk loaded the back seat with full grocery bags. A man was in the driver’s seat and another was in the front passenger seat with a laptop. Both were there to monitor the car’s performance.

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