Whole Foods Market testing in-store pick-up
Offering in-store pick-up
Although Whole Foods Market and Instacart have been working together in the 15 cities, the retailer is broadening its presence in grocery e-commerce through also offering in-store pickup. This will initially be piloted at stores in the Austin and Boston areas, before being expanded to additional cities. The retailer is the first national Instacart partner to offer in-store pickup.
Potential to scale up quickly
Partnering with Instacart enables Whole Foods Market to scale up its e-commerce operations quickly without having to invest in developing the supporting infrastructure. Shoppers will order via Instacart’s website or mobile app, with delivery window options including one-hour, two-hours or a scheduled time. However, the service can only be offered where Instacart has personal shoppers in place, or has the ability to recruit, and also the retailer will have less direct control over delivery fees and the service and delivery experience.
Increased interaction between stores and Instacart’s shoppers
Offering home delivery and in-store pick-up represents further evolution of Instacart’s model. The addition of customer pick-up will require that the stores and Instacart’s personal shoppers work much more closely together. Changes will have to be made at store level to hold customer orders and process them quickly at the point of pick-up.
Grocery e-commerce gaining traction in North America
The availability of grocery e-commerce, and pick-up specifically, is growing in the North America. Walmart is already offering pick-up alongside its grocery e-commerce test in the Denver area, and is also set to open its first standalone pick-up location for groceries in Bentonville. Following its acquisition of Harris Teeter earlier this year, Kroger is expected to take learnings and expand its ‘Express Lane’ model to other regions, while Loblaw in Canada is launching its first test of pick-up, or click and collect, later this year.
source: RetailAnalysis
