Price Check: Instacart Highlights Grocer Markup
April 29, 2015 | 1 min to read
Forbes recently named grocery delivery app Instacart as America’s Most Promising Company. But the startup still has a long road ahead of it.
On Thursday, the $2 billion-valued Instacart announced changes to its online storefront. For the first time, its app and website will display the price difference, if any, on products sold both on Instacart and in the physical store where Instacart personal shoppers go to fulfill orders.
Instacart founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta told Forbes in an interview that the change was made in part to highlight partnerships between the company and its grocers, such as Whole Foods and Safeway. Instacart has pivoted away from setting a surcharge on each delivered item (although it still does for many grocers), a practice that could endanger relationships with customers. It now seeks to partner with retailers directly, receiving a fee from them to act essentially as the stores’ own online ordering and delivery service.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Forbes