Grocery electricity supplier Instacart: one-hour delivery shopping platform
Staff Reporter | | Jun 21, 2013 10:33 AM EDT |
According to the Fortune Magazine, the founder of Instacart, Mehta, was an ex-Amazon Supply Chain engineer, "who is leveraging his experience building Amazon's own complex backend logistical system in the hopes of creating a more efficient back and front-end grocery delivery experience at Instacart."
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Instacart claims it will not follow the Amazon grocery's business model, instead, it wants to take advantage of the existing supermarket buyer power.
Besides the competition from Amazon, Instacart will also have to face lots of competitors. And Mehta's main task is to find the most efficient routes for shipping packages for customers.
"They were delivering your groceries along with Xboxes," recalls Mehta, who collaborated with AmazonFresh employees. "Delivering groceries alongside traditionally higher-margin items like electronics was done to help temper the low margins and pricey overhead typically associated with procuring, storing, and shipping produce. That may seem like an interesting idea, but how many times do you need to buy an Xbox?"
Instacart has already made expansion to Los Angeles and it could reach the San Francisco Bay Area later this year. Different from AmazonFresh that rely on the warehouses to transport goods to customers, Instacart choose to use an existing infrastructure, which it will rely on the local supermarkets to make delivery of goods to customers from their own stores.
How does Instacart work? Customers shop online or through mobile app, choose inventories of chains like Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Costco, down to smaller, more independent markets. Each order may have items from several stores. "Orders with 15 items or less are eligible for one-hour delivery. Otherwise, two-hour, same-day, or a delivery at a later date and time is also options. Instacart charges a small premium based on the purchase size."
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