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Instacart adds Trader Joe's
- rdl 14y agoPlease add whole foods or berkeley bowl or some other place with decent produce (nob hill in MV is ok) -- Safeway is great for national packaged food, Trader Joe's for private label frozen stuff, but both are weak for produce, meat, fish, deli, etc. A drug store might also be good, although Safeway probably has enough of a selection for OTC medication, cleaning/etc. supplies, etc.
- stephth 14y agoFor produce, why not order it directly from farms? We live in downtown San Francisco and get our organic produce delivered weekly from http://farmfreshtoyou.com http://farmfreshtoyou.com We've been using it for more than a year and have been happy with it, that said I'd be curious to hear other suggestions, specially services that deliver organic produce from a group of farms instead of only one.
- rdl 14y agoInstacart is about "oh shit, I ran out of x and y for use in the next few hours, but if I go to the store I will miss my party or not get work done or not make e other items". If I had a week to plan, it would be different.
- frossie 14y agoYeah - CSAs have their place, but you are constrained to local vegetables in season, and often you don't know more than a day in advance what you are getting. They are great for supporting localvorism, but it doesn't cover the "hey come round to my place tomorrow, I'll cook a green curry - oh hell I need japanese eggplants". Frankly vegetables and bread are the main thing I would want delivered quickly and often - pantry staples I can stock up in one big monthly trip, it's not really a big deal to fit that in.
- rdl 14y agoPantry staples are generally fine if you have decent inventory tracking. The problem is when you've started something and realize "oh, shit, we're out of salt...the big box we thought was full behind this one was empty/spoiled/etc." Instacart also makes a lot of sense in groups, where no one individually wants to be responsible for going for stuff. Parties, roommates, or offices. The problem with fish/produce/etc. is there's variation on offer. If I go to the store and want some tuna steaks, but see hamachi is on sale, I might get that instead. It would be hard to delegate that level of decision making to anyone who wasn't a routine agent, or having an exceptionally good CRM, or having a realtime inventory system at the store. What I'd love if if someone could get Tokyo Fish Market in Berkeley, a few farmers markets, etc. to publish realtime inventory info, and do a buying trip once a day. Go in in the morning, see exactly what is there and at what price, let me know, and then I'll let you know in an hour or so what I'll buy. Specialized restaurants do this already (e.g. sushi chef goes to the fish market), but maybe smaller places would be more likely to do it for ancillary items if they could use tech to do it for them, or home cooks would do it. Most restaurants just use food service companies like SYSCO for most of their stuff now, though.
- beatpanda 14y ago"Constrained to local vegetables in season" is a feature :)
- philsnow 14y agoWhat's your metric for "decent" produce ? I prefer to get produce from 99 Ranch because it's better and cheaper than what's available at Safeway.
- rdl 14y ago99 Ranch is also great. It's not as high quality for fish as Tokyo Fish Market, but good, and definitely cheap. If I were in the South Bay I'd shop there a lot more.
- josh2600 14y agoI'm intrigued by Instacart. Part of me realizes that Webvan had it right all those years ago, and another part of me thinks this model can't scale. The best ideas are the ones that teeter on the the edge of improbability. Watching the success (or failure) of this company is like watching NASCAR. Keep making those left turns until something blows up or you win the Cup. Win or Lose, I'm glad someone is trying this idea. The Instacart folks just might have enough hustle to pull this off. Wishing you folks lots of luck!
- ry0ohki 14y agoI've always wondered, what happened to that $1 BILLION of infrastructure that Webvan setup?
- josh2600 14y agoIt's right next to Cuil's infrastructure.
- rdl 14y agoCuil's infrastructure was across the aisle from my cage :)
- josh2600 14y agoLol! That's awesome. I always wonder about that company. I saw the ex-CEO speak at Failcon and I'm continually reminded of the idea that companies die not because of bad product or losing one particular deal, but, rather, because the owners decided to give up. To my mind, Cuil could've stayed afloat, but no one wanted it to. It was easier to sweep that giant pile of FUBAR under the rug, but, in retrospect, they would've still likely been a large company, albeit not Google size, but large nonetheless.
- rdl 14y agoYeah, I think there's a conflict between opportunity costs and fighting to the absolute end. There's plenty of value locked up in the company which could have done other things. If it were startup nuclear winter and they had no other options, they might have made something successful out of it. Staying may not have been the economically rational choice for them, but if there were different economics, or non-economic factors (pride, unwillingness to fail, etc.), they might have had a better outcome. And there's always uncertainty in estimating -- usually in underestimating how big a success something could be if successful -- so "blindly" continuing could the EV maximizing choice, too.
- timjahn 14y agoI love the idea but I'm skeptical about the ability to scale. I do think grocery shopping is definitely in need of a large dose of increased efficiency. It dawned on me last time I went grocery shopping with my wife and son just how much time and effort can be wasted grocery shopping. 1. We drove to the store. 2. Walked around the store getting everything. 3. Checked out and put all our stuff in bags. 4. Put the bags in the car, drove home. 5. Took the bags from the car into the house. 6. Emptied the bags and put everything away where it belongs. Steps 1-5 should be eliminated by some sort of automation. Services like Peapod are starting to do this, but they're quite a bit more expensive. When you think about it, you have a large number of people within a certain radius of a local grocery store all buying items from that store on a regular basis, but usually driving there themselves over and over. Seems like it would be more efficient (in an ideal world) to have the store make regular rounds (like the mailman does) to the houses with their orders.
- Avenger42 14y agoDon't forget to use driverless vehicles to make deliveries (this is an ideal world, after all).
- TillE 14y agoHm, probably not. That might work in a suburban setting, but imagine someone in an apartment a couple floors up who orders a significant load of groceries. It'd be much quicker for a person to cart the whole load to their door, rather than waiting for the customer to unload everything in a few trips. Driverless vehicles are feasible in the next decade or so, but delivery-robots not so much.
- gmrple 14y agoI'm not so sure. I could see delivery robots in a decade.
- Firehed 14y agoI see delivery robots being significantly easier to create than driverless cars. All you need is a shopping cart stuck on top of a set of stair-capable movement system, it's not like the thing needs to be dressed up as a butler.
- plusbryan 14y agoAs an instacart user, I can say this is a welcome addition to a much valued service.
- georgemcbay 14y agoAs a frequent Trader Joe's customer, it seems like supporting them for something like this would be a bit of a nightmare because the items they carry are constantly changing based on regional supply and demand.
- TillE 14y agoWhat's the current state of computerized inventory systems? Allowing for some error due to theft and accidents, I would think it'd be fairly straightforward to keep everything up to date.
- baddox 14y agoI'm sure Trader Joes can (and maybe does) do this internally, but it's unlikely that they'll share that information with a third party delivery service.
- scdc 14y agoSo hard to "order" fruit and veggies, though. You say you want flat leaf parsley, but you get delivered a sad bunch of limp & yellowing leaves. If I was in the store, I'd get curly parsley if it looked better.
- apoorvamehta 14y agoGood point. You can leave notes for the shopper for each individual item on Instacart so the shopper knows what to buy.
- irollboozers 14y ago"Note - can you only buy the flat, sad looking parsley"
- ashrust 14y agoI use instacart a few times a week and have found they're happy to resolve any issues with produce.
- woodchuck64 14y agoI switched from monthly Costco visits to soap.com and won't go back. Now Instacart looks like it will save me some of those Safeway and Trader Joe trips, too. More weekend free time!
- callmeed 14y agoMeh, you can't cruise soap.com on a Saturday and fill-up on free samples ...
- philsnow 14y agoI really, really wish costco didn't give out samples of anything. Each sample cart becomes the nexus of a swirling shitstorm of carts and kids, all oblivious to the people who are trying to get some shopping done.
- thezanman 14y agoTry finding a Costco Business Center near you. You don't need a business membership, and they don't have samples or the food court that creates all the commotion.
- jrkelly 14y agoIs soap better than Amazon in your experience? I'm a heavy user of amzn for a lot of this stuff, but hadn't heard of soap.com.
- woodchuck64 14y agoActually Amazon owns soap.com. It's a more limited inventory but quick (1-2 days typically for most items) with free shipping over $49. I supplement soap.com with amazon.com as needed.
- mille562 14y agoSoap.com is a Quidsi company which is a unit of amazon.
- whichdan 14y agoI wonder what the ROI would be if they hired graphic designers to make some really snazzy thumbnails for each item? By extension, I'd be really interested in how effectively they could push extra items, similarly to how Amazon does it. * "Adding avocados to your cart? Add [several guacamole ingredients] at a 10% discount, and we'll email you a free recipe." * "Want to make your own guacamole? Add these [several items] and we'll email you a free recipe." * "Browse these popular shopping lists" * Possibly a "buy now" button on a recipe site that automatically added all of the required ingredients to your cart. I could see a service like this sapping more of my money than Whole Food's prepared food section. (I'm in Boston, so I haven't signed up for their site - do they do any of this already?)
- aaronblohowiak 14y ago10% is huge for a grocer. Grocery margins tend to be very thin.
- whichdan 14y agoThat's a good point. Amazon's "Price for Both" is literally the price for both. Personally I always assume the "Price for Both" will be at a discount, even though it rarely is.
- Falling3 14y agoIt's true that margins are generally thin... but 10% doesn't even compare to the average sale (deal).
- sharkweek 14y agoWas a buyer at a large supermarket for a little over a year; we were normally pushing for 30-40% margins on most food items. On the hyper-perishable stuff, normally higher. It did really vary vendor to vendor though.
- OGinparadise 14y agoYeah but paying everyone and whatever else, very little remains as profit. 10% off just like that might wipe the profit.
- irollboozers 14y agoAw yiss.
- jessriedel 14y agoDoes Instacart really try to force you to sign in before you even get to their webpage? Am I doing something wrong? http://imgur.com/UE0RI http://imgur.com/UE0RI I guess I'm supposed to click "learn more", but this isn't intuitively an alternative to signing in, nor is it satisfying.
- apoorvamehta 14y agoYes, we do. Our metrics show that this converts better.
- jedberg 14y agoWhy can't I sort by price? Does that test better too?
- apoorvamehta 14y agoWe will be adding that soon :)
- jedberg 14y agoAwesome, thanks! I think it will be a huge improvement for price sensitive folks (and people like me who are just cheap!)
- apoorvamehta 14y agoMakes sense. I appreciate the feedback.
- diziet 14y agoPrice sorting will be most useful when it shows price / weight~
- waterlesscloud 14y agoDoes the metric account for people like me who are so turned off by the requirement that I'll never return to sign up at a later date?
- joejohnson 14y agoTrader Joe's already delivers; so does Safeway. However, I'm surprised that the delivery fee is so cheap ($3.99 for sameday). Safeway currently charges $4.95 for delivery in a 4 hour window the next day. Does Instacart use TJ's/Safeway's prices, or do they set their own prices for each item?
- schoper 14y agoInstacart's per-item prices tend to be far higher. I might use them if they raised the delivery fee and removed the item price gouging.
- josh2600 14y agoHow would consumer opinion be effected by the change? I wonder if, as a consumer, I would resent seeing a "service fee" as opposed to seeing higher priced goods. Perhaps, subconsciously, people ignore the item price and are looking for the "fee". In this case, their pricing is their marketing. I'd be quite interested in whether they A/B tested the two strategies.
- ssebro 14y agoI think the average InstaCart customer doesn't realize that per-item prices are higher. I didn't.
- Firehed 14y agoI've been passively aware of it, but don't really care - most items are not really egregious. Because Safeway's prices are so volatile with sales and Instacart doesn't seem to really reflect that, it ends up balancing out pretty well (plus, of course, the huge convenience factor)
- schoper 14y agoEDIT: Eridius is correct below. Instacart is just mislabeling their product pricing. The 3 lbs. ribeye shows up as $30 per lb., but is actually $30. I'll bet they are doing the opposite as well (buying 0.5 lbs. of anything will look like an insane deal). ORIGINAL POST: I'm looking at some $30/lb ribeye steak right now. The same "extra value" package at Safeway was $10/lb. Price-tripling is unacceptable to me.
- yinyinwu 14y agoI love Instacart and use the product with our startup probably 2-3times a week. Going to the grocery store takes at least an hour when you consider driving and standing in line. Instacart is like 7-11 - you never plan to a trip to 7-11 and always pay a premium, but it's everywhere and convenient. It's great that if I crave Ben&Jerry's ice cream, I can buy it and have it delivered in under 3 hours. With the added Trader Joe's delivery service, our Instacart usage will probably bump to 4 times a week.
- OGinparadise 14y ago"It's great that if I crave Ben&Jerry's ice cream, I can buy it and have it delivered in under 3 hours." Every time I wanted ice cream, it was in my hands in a matter of minutes not hours :). Detergents, soaps, medicines etc can be bought via Amazon, Drugstore.com etc. Fruits and veggies...you actually want to see before buying them. I don't think this will scale. Prices will have to be a lot more expensive than normal grocery shopping, so adoption will be limited. Even if it takes just one hour, the person doing the shopping has to be paid, instacart has to make a profit and that will jack up the price. I understand the convenience factor, but for the vast majority of people it's not a good tradeoff. That said, Instacart can become a niche player and still make money. What's up with Instacart not letting you browse without logging in?
- Mystitat 14y agoThank you so much, I needed this so badly. I've been at home with the flu all week and haven't been able to get out to buy groceries. I just placed my order. I can have food now!
- nell 14y agoI was really interested in the service and wanted to check it out. It wont let me in without signing up. How do I know they are not a scam site or useless without providing my information. Bad UX. If you want to do business, keep your front door open.