Same-Day Shopping Service Instacart Expands to Santa Fe

In something of an Uber-esque operation, shopper/drivers are sent scurrying to stores to shop for customers who have ordered items from the company’s website, www.instacart.com, or via the company’s mobile app on iPhone or Android devices.
To begin with, four Santa Fe stores have partnered with Instacart — CVS, Natural Grocers, Sprouts and Petco. Jesse Jaramillo, a manager at Sprouts, said he expects Instacart to increase sales and, just as important, “help people that can’t so easily leave their homes.”

 

He said he often meets people who are shopping for invalid friends or relatives. With Instacart, he said, the shopper won’t have to look for someone to do their shopping, “but just let the company do it for them.”
 

Reminiscent of an era when small-town grocers offered home delivery, the service fits with a convenience trend among food retailers aiming to help customers reduce shopping time. Wal-Mart Supercenter has a curbside pickup service, and representatives at Smith’s and Albertsons say they expect to begin such services in the near future.
 

The local Whole Foods doesn’t yet offer such curbside or delivery services, though the Whole Foods chain recently announced that it would begin offering free, same-day grocery deliveries from Whole Foods to Amazon Prime members in select cities — Austin, Texas, Cincinnati, Dallas and Virginia Beach, Va. — with plans to expand the service elsewhere.
 

With Instacart, after setting up an account online, a customer can select a participating store, choose a delivery time, add the items they want to a virtual cart and check out, with the cost billed to a credit card.
 

An Instacart shopper accepts the order over his or her smartphone, picks up the items from the store and delivers them to the customer’s home.
 

Holyoak said customers can specify instructions for the shopper, such as where to leave the items if they don’t want to deal with the shopper directly.
 

For orders of $35 or more, the delivery fee is $5.99, with the first delivery free. Customers also can sign up for Instacart Express, which enables unlimited, free same-day delivery on orders of $35 or more. Express membership is $14.99 a month or $149 a year.
 

The company says its Santa Fe service area includes Cañada de Los Alamos, Agua Fría, La Cienega, Tesuque, Seton Village, Nambe Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Pojoaque, Rio en Medio, Cuyamungue, Chupadero, Cundiyo, Arroyo Seco, Tesuque Pueblo, Jaconita and Las Dos. The ZIP codes include 87501, 87505, 87506, 87507 and 87508.
 

Holyoak said shopping/delivery people are vetted through background checks, and that if customers encounter problems, they can call the Instacart Help Center at 888-246-7822 or visit Instacart.com/help.
 

He said Instacart, which currently serves more than 150 cities, is a good fit for Santa Fe in part because of its older population. He also said it suits busy adults.
 

Danielle Burger, among the first Santa Feans to use Instacart, had mostly praise for the service. “It was seamless. It was perfect,” she said. (The driver/shopper) “came to the door and handed the groceries right over. … She was very polite, an older woman from Española. It was the first time for both of us.”
 

Burger had been working on a project at home and needed some ingredients for soup, but didn’t have time to go out. She contacted Instacart through the app and ordered the food to be picked up at Sprouts.
 

Despite the ease of the first free delivery, Burger said she does not plan to use Instacart again. She said that as a company representative explained the terms to her, she decided it would be too expensive on a long-term basis.
 

Like others in the emerging gig economy — which rely on Internet-linked freelance workers rather than company employees — Instacart has had its troubles since beginning operations in San Francisco in 2012.

Issues reported last year included a $4.6 million lawsuit settlement that centered on misclassification of the shoppers’ job status as well as tipping and business expense issues.
 

In November 2017, some Instacart workers staged a “strike” in which they arranged times for deliveries but then refused to make them, an action aimed at protesting low compensation.

Holyoak said he could not speak to those issues.
 

Stanford economics professor Paul Oyer, an expert on the gig economy, said such troubles are not uncommon for startups such as Instacart.
 

He said that in the short term, for the companies, the freelancers involved and their customers, “There can be a lot of bumps in the road. … In the long run they will find an equilibrium.”

These companies are growing very fast, “trying to grab their share of the market while trying to be cost efficient,” he said. “They are so worried about growing quickly … the details come back to haunt them.”
 

In lining up the shopper/drivers, he said, it’s “a matter of finding the right people.”
 

In Santa Fe, as in all locations, Oyer said, “There will be workers who find [the Instacart jobs] to be a good fit, and for others it’s just not manageable.”
 

As for the grocery industry itself, changes have not occurred as fast as people thought they would 20 years ago, Oyer said, with stores moving slowly to change shopping and delivery patterns.
By: Dennis Carroll (Santa Fe New Mexican)
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