Photo: Instacart
Amazon.com is certainly a headline grabber. It has made news in the past week for the launch of Prime Now deliveries from Whole Foods in four markets along with the planned rollout of a new service, Shipping with Amazon (SWA), that will put the company in competition with FedEx and UPS. Amazon, however, isn’t the only company making headlines as the third-party same-day grocery delivery services, Instacart and Shipt, had news of their own.
Instacart announced yesterday that it has raised $200 million in a new round of funding for the service, which now boasts some 200 grocery partners in North America, including seven of the top eight.
In a blog post with the title “Tipping Point,” Instacart’s founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta, wrote that the company, which is now valued at $4.2 billion, would use the cash influx to offer “more convenience and better selection at competitive prices” to its customers. He said, Instacart planned further investments in “shopper support teams and software” as it continues its expansion.
Shipt, which was acquired by Target in December, will begin making same-day deliveries in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market on March 1. The service will deliver products including electronics, toys and other items in addition to groceries from about 50 stores in the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs.
When Target acquired Shipt, it announced that it planned to make the service available to customers in the majority of its stores by this year’s Christmas selling season. The two companies, which initially are limiting deliveries to key items, plan to offer same-day deliveries from all major categories by the end of next year.
- Tipping Point – Instacart
- Target will roll out same-day delivery in Twin Cities next month as it faces off with Amazon – Minneapolis Star Tribune
- Amazon rolls out Prime Now deliveries from Whole Foods – RetailWire
- Amazon moves closer to FedEx and UPS’s turf – RetailWire
- Target to make same-day delivery push with Shipt acquisition – RetailWire