14 ms·

Instacart: Crowdsourcing Your Grocery Shopping

89 points by apoorvamehta 13y ago

vj44 13y ago
Congrats guys! Are you planning to come to NYC this year?
- stephengillie 13y ago
  Or maybe Mercer Island to compete with Amazon Fresh?
HorizonXP 13y ago
Congrats to the team on securing funding! Can't wait to see you guys expand! Personally, I use Instacart every week to buy all of my groceries. I live in Palo Alto, and don't own a car. With Instacart, that's easy, since I don't have to worry about going to the grocery store, and lugging groceries back and forth in a car. So while it may be more expensive to use Instacart, my reduced burn-rate of not having to own and maintain a vehicle makes it a net cost-savings.
- michaelt 13y ago
  How much is the service/delivery charge?
  - HorizonXP 13y ago
    I honestly can't remember, since I'm on Instacart Express, and I get free deliveries above a certain dollar amount, I think $35.
  - zem 13y ago
    that's fairly irrelevant, i think, since most of the cost comes from the per-item markups.
    - michaelt 13y ago
      Oh, there's a per-item markup as well? How big is that?
      - HorizonXP 13y ago
        You can look at Safeway/Trader Joe/Whole Foods prices and compare it to Instacart's to figure that out. That being said, do you ask Safeway/Trader Joe's/Whole Foods what their markup is? The only reason you care is because it's not completely hidden from you.
        smackfu 13y ago
        OTOH, Peapod does grocery delivery around here and just uses the local Stop & Shop's prices, including their weekly specials. I like it since I trust that a major chain will have competitive prices.
        zem 13y ago
        that's a very good point.
- tehwebguy 13y ago
  Sounds awesome but doesn't that require the assumption that you would only ever use a car as a grocery transporter?
  - HorizonXP 13y ago
    Sure, but it removes that reason for having a car too. In my life, cars are usually used for: a) Commuting b) Transportation of goods c) Travelling (i.e. entertainment) Generally, that order reflects what I use a car most for (i.e. Most of the time, my car is for commuting.) Instacart helps remove the need for transporting goods. Amazon helps remove the rest. And I work at a location that makes commuting via bicycle + public transportation extremely easy. So I don't need a car to commute or to transport goods. So for the few times that I need a car for entertainment, it doesn't make sense to own one. It makes more sense to rent a car from a local Hertz, or to use ZipCar for those one-off situations. So Instacart is part of the solution, it isn't the entire solution.
  - apendleton 13y ago
    As a fellow urban non-car-owner, groceries or other situations where I need to lug a bunch of stuff are the only remaining obvious situation for me where car ownership offers clear advantages over a bike, transit, or Uber. So to your question, yes, but I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption for a lot of city-dwellers.
rfnslyr 13y ago
Shit this is exactly the idea I had. Congratulations guys, it's nice to have validation.
yabbadabbadoo 13y ago
Mike Moritz doesn't get out of bed for less than a billion dollars - http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-green-dots-billions-and-whispers-of-greatness/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-gr... Looks like Instacart is on the right path to a massive IPO :) Good work guys!
- tixocloud 13y ago
  An IPO is just a means of transferring ownership. It doesn't say much about the viability of the business model other than that people might believe in it.
- rdouble 13y ago
  Mike Moritz has invested in as many duds as successes.
  - visakanv 13y ago
    A 1:1 dud-to-success ratio is to die for!
    - rdouble 13y ago
      That's not really what I meant, but I guess that's what I said. Sadly, Sequoia funding is no guarantee of success as I know from personal experience.
edw519 13y ago
“The one thing that we got extremely right about the Webvan investment was that there would be huge consumer demand for home delivery of groceries," he says. "It’s just taken time for technology to finally catch up." I don't understand this at all and would really appreciate any enlightenment. What has changed in technology in the past 12 years to enable home grocery delivery? Broadband? Cloud storage? HTML5? AJAX? Flat design? Mobile? And if any of these (Mobile being the most likely), how would they affect viability? I suspect the thing that has changed more is us. We are probably more open to "low tech" evolutions: lack of privacy, increased trust of strangers, crowd sourcing, always being connected. Or maybe some clever hackers figured out a better way of doing something new with the same basic technology. Frankly, I can't imagine what these 10 programmers would be doing today that couldn't have been done in 2001.
- danielharan 13y ago
  Yes. Mobile and crowdsourcing: a freelancer with a smart phone removes the need for a warehouse.
- sputknick 13y ago
  I agree that I don't see how THESE GUYS can succed, but I feel that with the infrastructure, and automation technology that Amazon has developed/purchased over the past 12 years the home delivery of groceries is a slam dunk to be successful.
- thufry 13y ago
  All of these new services that enable poor or lower-income people to serve rich people (Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart) have been enabled by two main things: an economic recession that permanently eliminated a lot of jobs and the recovery which drove economics gains to the 1%, and smartphones, which allow the customers or workers to send or receive requests at any time.
  - jdminhbg 13y ago
    > All of these new services that enable poor or lower-income people to serve rich people (Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart) have been enabled by two main things: an economic recession that permanently eliminated a lot of jobs and the recovery which drove economics gains to the 1% The 1% don't use Uber, TaskRabbit, or Instacart; they have actual personal drivers, servants, and chefs.
efields 13y ago
First: Congratulations all around. Very exciting to get that much support and validation. Second: As much as any of us can make comprehensive grocery lists, there's a serendipity to the grocery runs that I'm not ready to give up. Snap decisions can be enablers for future meals. "I need 1 lb. of chicken breast but, hey, wait… maybe I'll get 2 lb. and make double and freeze the rest for next week?" … "Oh shit… tomato paste! Definitely used the last of that a couple days ago; better get some more." It was a no-brainer to ditch the video rental store, but you can't browse fresh groceries from an Apple TV. Third: I'm not willing to trust a stranger to pick out an avocado that's just the right ripeness for my purposes, nor do I want to type out just how ripe I want my avocado this time. EDIT: clarity
- maxgaudin 13y ago
  That's a good point but I personally hate spending 45 mins plus in the grocery store and would love to have someone bring it to my door. I find it to be a huge waste of time. If the ripeness of your avocado is that important to you then you'll still be one of those taking the trip to the store. One important advantage instacart has over the in-store experience is the filtering and sorting of goods. The amount of toilet paper or cereal to choose from is absurd. EDIT: After looking at the web app there appears to be no sorting/filtering capabilities but only search. Bummer.
  - silencio 13y ago
    > One important advantage instacart has over the in-store experience is the filtering and sorting of goods. That's assuming you get what you ordered in the first place, and ripeness of an avocado is barely touching on these problems. My boyfriend has been experimenting with ordering cat food from various sources in SF. Necessary backstory: regular Fancy Feast comes in two categories of textures: Classic which is a pâté style, and everything else (Flaked, Grilled, Sliced...) which is anything but. Our cat exclusively eats non-pâté food. So we order a 24 can box of flaked/grilled/sliced beef+poultry or seafood, and what shows up at the door? Instacart, Postmates, and Google Shopping Express all got it wrong (I bet AmazonFresh will too when it starts up here) - in fact, I can't think of a single time a person got the cat food order _right_ even though when we go shopping on our own knowing "not classic" we never have a problem reading the boxes clearly labeled as such... To their credit they all resolved the problem, but.. both of us and our roommate order from all three services all the time and something always gets screwed up like that. If you can live with that, then awesome. We mostly do for convenience's sake, until we get key limes as a substitute for persian limes meant for margaritas.
amac 13y ago
The strange thing about this is that in the UK, here every major food retailer has been doing this for years. It also has to be said, they don't break-down figures but most folks suspect it's not a profitable activity - it's a market share activity.
- tapatio 13y ago
  Same in South America. There's really nothing novel here. I see Instacart getting taken out (not acquired) by Amazon within the next year or two.
hayward2 13y ago
This company will fail. I don't see it being profitable on 3.99 per delivery... Nor do I see the interest in the service outside the Bay Area. Enjoy the VC money while it lasts guys
argumentum 13y ago
Apoorva stop killing it, it's needless pressure on the rest of us ;) Jk, congrats! Instacart rocks and aside from delivering groceries, is creating work and income to a lot of people who really need it. The so called "99%" won't be saved by politicians, but rather companies like Instacart.
pbreit 13y ago
When I read "crowdsourcing" in the headline I was expecting more of a discussion about how Instacart was enlisting a broader base of "delivery" people but it sounds like its messengers are still a pretty tight circle. Which makes sense, since, as the article also notes, there's a quality level that probably needs to be attained to be viable.

89 points by apoorvamehta 13y ago

vj44 13y ago

Congrats guys! Are you planning to come to NYC this year?

stephengillie 13y ago
Or maybe Mercer Island to compete with Amazon Fresh?

HorizonXP 13y ago

Congrats to the team on securing funding! Can't wait to see you guys expand! Personally, I use Instacart every week to buy all of my groceries. I live in Palo Alto, and don't own a car. With Instacart, that's easy, since I don't have to worry about going to the grocery store, and lugging groceries back and forth in a car. So while it may be more expensive to use Instacart, my reduced burn-rate of not having to own and maintain a vehicle makes it a net cost-savings.

michaelt 13y ago
How much is the service/delivery charge?
- HorizonXP 13y ago
  I honestly can't remember, since I'm on Instacart Express, and I get free deliveries above a certain dollar amount, I think $35.
- zem 13y ago
  that's fairly irrelevant, i think, since most of the cost comes from the per-item markups.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    Oh, there's a per-item markup as well? How big is that?
    - HorizonXP 13y ago
      You can look at Safeway/Trader Joe/Whole Foods prices and compare it to Instacart's to figure that out. That being said, do you ask Safeway/Trader Joe's/Whole Foods what their markup is? The only reason you care is because it's not completely hidden from you.
      - smackfu 13y ago
        OTOH, Peapod does grocery delivery around here and just uses the local Stop & Shop's prices, including their weekly specials. I like it since I trust that a major chain will have competitive prices.
      - zem 13y ago
        that's a very good point.
tehwebguy 13y ago
Sounds awesome but doesn't that require the assumption that you would only ever use a car as a grocery transporter?
- HorizonXP 13y ago
  Sure, but it removes that reason for having a car too. In my life, cars are usually used for: a) Commuting b) Transportation of goods c) Travelling (i.e. entertainment) Generally, that order reflects what I use a car most for (i.e. Most of the time, my car is for commuting.) Instacart helps remove the need for transporting goods. Amazon helps remove the rest. And I work at a location that makes commuting via bicycle + public transportation extremely easy. So I don't need a car to commute or to transport goods. So for the few times that I need a car for entertainment, it doesn't make sense to own one. It makes more sense to rent a car from a local Hertz, or to use ZipCar for those one-off situations. So Instacart is part of the solution, it isn't the entire solution.
- apendleton 13y ago
  As a fellow urban non-car-owner, groceries or other situations where I need to lug a bunch of stuff are the only remaining obvious situation for me where car ownership offers clear advantages over a bike, transit, or Uber. So to your question, yes, but I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption for a lot of city-dwellers.

rfnslyr 13y ago

Shit this is exactly the idea I had. Congratulations guys, it's nice to have validation.

yabbadabbadoo 13y ago

Mike Moritz doesn't get out of bed for less than a billion dollars - http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-green-dots-billions-and-whispers-of-greatness/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-gr... Looks like Instacart is on the right path to a massive IPO :) Good work guys!

tixocloud 13y ago
An IPO is just a means of transferring ownership. It doesn't say much about the viability of the business model other than that people might believe in it.
rdouble 13y ago
Mike Moritz has invested in as many duds as successes.
- visakanv 13y ago
  A 1:1 dud-to-success ratio is to die for!
  - rdouble 13y ago
    That's not really what I meant, but I guess that's what I said. Sadly, Sequoia funding is no guarantee of success as I know from personal experience.

edw519 13y ago

“The one thing that we got extremely right about the Webvan investment was that there would be huge consumer demand for home delivery of groceries," he says. "It’s just taken time for technology to finally catch up." I don't understand this at all and would really appreciate any enlightenment. What has changed in technology in the past 12 years to enable home grocery delivery? Broadband? Cloud storage? HTML5? AJAX? Flat design? Mobile? And if any of these (Mobile being the most likely), how would they affect viability? I suspect the thing that has changed more is us. We are probably more open to "low tech" evolutions: lack of privacy, increased trust of strangers, crowd sourcing, always being connected. Or maybe some clever hackers figured out a better way of doing something new with the same basic technology. Frankly, I can't imagine what these 10 programmers would be doing today that couldn't have been done in 2001.

danielharan 13y ago
Yes. Mobile and crowdsourcing: a freelancer with a smart phone removes the need for a warehouse.
sputknick 13y ago
I agree that I don't see how THESE GUYS can succed, but I feel that with the infrastructure, and automation technology that Amazon has developed/purchased over the past 12 years the home delivery of groceries is a slam dunk to be successful.
thufry 13y ago
All of these new services that enable poor or lower-income people to serve rich people (Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart) have been enabled by two main things: an economic recession that permanently eliminated a lot of jobs and the recovery which drove economics gains to the 1%, and smartphones, which allow the customers or workers to send or receive requests at any time.
- jdminhbg 13y ago
  > All of these new services that enable poor or lower-income people to serve rich people (Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart) have been enabled by two main things: an economic recession that permanently eliminated a lot of jobs and the recovery which drove economics gains to the 1% The 1% don't use Uber, TaskRabbit, or Instacart; they have actual personal drivers, servants, and chefs.

efields 13y ago

First: Congratulations all around. Very exciting to get that much support and validation. Second: As much as any of us can make comprehensive grocery lists, there's a serendipity to the grocery runs that I'm not ready to give up. Snap decisions can be enablers for future meals. "I need 1 lb. of chicken breast but, hey, wait… maybe I'll get 2 lb. and make double and freeze the rest for next week?" … "Oh shit… tomato paste! Definitely used the last of that a couple days ago; better get some more." It was a no-brainer to ditch the video rental store, but you can't browse fresh groceries from an Apple TV. Third: I'm not willing to trust a stranger to pick out an avocado that's just the right ripeness for my purposes, nor do I want to type out just how ripe I want my avocado this time. EDIT: clarity

maxgaudin 13y ago
That's a good point but I personally hate spending 45 mins plus in the grocery store and would love to have someone bring it to my door. I find it to be a huge waste of time. If the ripeness of your avocado is that important to you then you'll still be one of those taking the trip to the store. One important advantage instacart has over the in-store experience is the filtering and sorting of goods. The amount of toilet paper or cereal to choose from is absurd. EDIT: After looking at the web app there appears to be no sorting/filtering capabilities but only search. Bummer.
- silencio 13y ago
  > One important advantage instacart has over the in-store experience is the filtering and sorting of goods. That's assuming you get what you ordered in the first place, and ripeness of an avocado is barely touching on these problems. My boyfriend has been experimenting with ordering cat food from various sources in SF. Necessary backstory: regular Fancy Feast comes in two categories of textures: Classic which is a pâté style, and everything else (Flaked, Grilled, Sliced...) which is anything but. Our cat exclusively eats non-pâté food. So we order a 24 can box of flaked/grilled/sliced beef+poultry or seafood, and what shows up at the door? Instacart, Postmates, and Google Shopping Express all got it wrong (I bet AmazonFresh will too when it starts up here) - in fact, I can't think of a single time a person got the cat food order _right_ even though when we go shopping on our own knowing "not classic" we never have a problem reading the boxes clearly labeled as such... To their credit they all resolved the problem, but.. both of us and our roommate order from all three services all the time and something always gets screwed up like that. If you can live with that, then awesome. We mostly do for convenience's sake, until we get key limes as a substitute for persian limes meant for margaritas.

amac 13y ago

The strange thing about this is that in the UK, here every major food retailer has been doing this for years. It also has to be said, they don't break-down figures but most folks suspect it's not a profitable activity - it's a market share activity.

tapatio 13y ago
Same in South America. There's really nothing novel here. I see Instacart getting taken out (not acquired) by Amazon within the next year or two.

hayward2 13y ago

This company will fail. I don't see it being profitable on 3.99 per delivery... Nor do I see the interest in the service outside the Bay Area. Enjoy the VC money while it lasts guys

argumentum 13y ago

Apoorva stop killing it, it's needless pressure on the rest of us ;) Jk, congrats! Instacart rocks and aside from delivering groceries, is creating work and income to a lot of people who really need it. The so called "99%" won't be saved by politicians, but rather companies like Instacart.

pbreit 13y ago

When I read "crowdsourcing" in the headline I was expecting more of a discussion about how Instacart was enlisting a broader base of "delivery" people but it sounds like its messengers are still a pretty tight circle. Which makes sense, since, as the article also notes, there's a quality level that probably needs to be attained to be viable.