Instacart Is Retail’s New Best Friend – Just Ask Whole Foods

Whole Food’s first-quarter earnings could not have been better timed. A few days before Valentine’s Day the retailer announced it was offering flower delivery service for the big day with its partner Instacart.

The announcement understandably got some play along with other takeaways from the call—sales are up! The anti-Whole Paycheck campaign is working!

But the focus on Valentine’s Day obscured a few related trends as well. 1) Whole Food’s is planning to expand its partnership with Instacart to include other products 2) The company has concluded that the possibility Instacart could cannabilize retail sales is small and the benefits of the relationship will likely outweigh any losses 3) It is a quite a turnaround for Instacart, which not that long ago was being disavowed by Whole Foods, when a spokesperson told the press that, “the delivery service that we’re working with is Google Shopping Express, and that’s the only one.”

Let’s deconstruct.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Forbes