Instacart

Instacart is an Internet-based grocery delivery service.

Instacart
Type of site
 Private
Founded 2012
Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States
Area served Select U.S. cities: Atlanta, Austin (TX), Boston, Boulder (CO), Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Irvine (CA), Los Angeles, Minneapolis New York City, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and more
Founder(s) Apoorva Mehta, Max Mullen, Brandon Leonardo
Industry Retail
Services Grocery Delivery
Slogan(s) Groceries Delivered in an Hour
Native client(s) on iOS, Android

The service

Instacart's service is mainly provided through a smartphone app, available on iOS and Android platforms, apart from its website. Customers can pay with Android Pay and Apple Pay on their respective platforms.[1] Initially Instacart shoppers simply went to a store and purchased the ordered items at retail and, in addition to the delivery charge, added a markup of 10 to 20 percent. As the business has developed, the firm has established relationships with grocery firms which share their (store) existing markup, allowing Instacart users to shop at in-store prices.[2][3]

Stores

History

Instacart was started by Apoorva Mehta, a former Amazon employee.[17] The company launched its service in San Francisco, Mountain View and Palo Alto.[18] The startup company has a $2 billion valuation by investors as of May 2015.[3] Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Comcast Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator and Angel Investor Martin Romero. As of January 2015 total funding was about $275M.[19] At that time, Forbes magazine named Instacart "the Most Promising Company in America".[20] In 2016, Whole Foods Market Inc. invested in Instacart in conjuction with its partnership.[21]

As of April 2015, the firm had about 200 employees. Actual shopping and delivery is done primarily by independent contractors, though a new policy will allow some Instacart shoppers to choose to be part-time employees.[22][23] During 2014, Instacart expanded to 15 cities: Atlanta; Austin; Boston; Boulder; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; New York City; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; San Jose; Seattle and Washington, DC, with plans to expand further in 2015.[3] In September 2015, the company hired Ravi Gupta as its first CFO. [24] Instacart raised its customer prices by 50% in December 2015, then a few months later the company cut by 50% its payments to couriers.[25]

References

  1. ↑ "Instacart Announces Integration with Apple Pay". Instacart.
  2. ↑ "Greater Pricing Transparency". instacart.com. Instacart. April 23, 2015. Retrieved May 7, 2015. When that badge says "Prices are same as in-store" (which is most of the time!), it means that the prices for that store’s items on Instacart are, on average, the same as the prices that retailer regularly charges in their physical stores (more details below). For stores where the prices on Instacart represent a markup over in-store prices, we clearly display that prices "May be higher than in-store."
  3. 1 2 3 Farhad Manjoo (April 29, 2015). "Instacart's Bet on Online Grocery Shopping". The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2015. Last year, it grew from serving just a few markets to 15 cities, and this year, it plans to expand to even more.
  4. ↑ "We've Partnered with Whole Foods Market® to Offer One-Hour Delivery Across 15 Major U.S. Cities". Instacart.
  5. ↑ Harris Teeter Grocery Delivery
  6. ↑ BJ's Wholesale Club Grocery Delivery
  7. ↑ Publix Grocery Delivery
  8. ↑ "HEB Partners with Instacart to Deliver Groceries in Austin". Silicon Hills News. 1 September 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  9. ↑ "We've Partnered with Petco to offer One-Hour Delivery in San Francisco and Boston". Instacart.
  10. ↑ "Petco and Instacart Add Additional Markets, Now Offering One-Hour Delivery in 14 Cities". Instacart.
  11. ↑ HMart Grocery Delivery
  12. ↑ "Instacart hires grocery shoppers to part-time jobs amid contract-labor disputes". Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  13. ↑ Ralphs Grocery Delivery
  14. ↑ Market Basket Grocery Delivery
  15. ↑ "Instacart expanding delivery in western suburbs". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  16. ↑ "Instacart Expands to Minneapolis and Partners with Target". Instacart. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  17. ↑ "Instacart Bags $2.3M to Become the Amazon of Groceries". WSJ. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  18. ↑ "Concierge grocery shopping". SFGate. 8 March 2013. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  19. ↑ Instacart. "We've Closed $220M Series C Round of Financing Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers". instacart.com. Instacart. Retrieved May 7, 2015. Yesterday we announced that we’ve closed a $220M round of Series C financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Other participants in the round include Comcast Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital and previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Sequoia. This brings our total funding to date to approximately $275M.
  20. ↑ Brian Solomon. "America's Most Promising Company: Instacart, The $2 Billion Grocery Delivery App". forbes.com.
  21. ↑ "Whole Foods Invests in Instacart at 2014 Valuation". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-10-19.
  22. ↑ Farhad Manjoo (May 21, 2014). "Grocery Deliveries in Sharing Economy". The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2015. It operates according to a decentralized business model that borrows from services like Uber, Airbnb and other firms in the so-called sharing economy.
  23. ↑ O'Brien, Sarah Ashley. "The Uber effect: Instacart shifts away from contract workers". CNN Money.
  24. ↑ Loizos, Connie. "Instacart Hires Its First CFO: Ravi Gupta". www.techcrunch.com. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  25. ↑ http://www.wsj.com/articles/grocery-delivery-startup-instacartcuts-pay-for-couriers-1457715105
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