Amazon has recently teamed up with grocery store chain Whole Foods to provide same-day grocery delivery to customers throughout the local areas surrounding the stores. As the lives of consumers continue to become busier and busier, Amazon and other companies are finding ways to get them what they need delivered to their home at the click of a button.
Sam’s Club is now throwing their hat in the arena and teaming up with Instacart in an attempt to be able to compete with the Amazon-Whole Food company partnership. While the program is testing currently in the Austin, St. Louis, and Dallas area, Sam’s Club is hoping to soon offer the service in a number of cities throughout the United States to help bring their customers fresh produce, meat, and even small appliances direct to their door.
Instacart is an online service that will match consumers with their favorite stores in the area where they can schedule home delivery. You will be able to log in, view stores in your area, as well as their available products and be able to put your items into the online cart. Once your order is placed, a personal shopper will go to the store pick your items, and deliver to your home in as little as an hour.
The company will also offer pickup service, where you can place you order than choose a time when you will pick up your groceries. Personal shoppers are vetted, pass background checks, and are trained on how to select the best produce and meat selections per their customers request.
Deliveries are free to those who sign up with Instacart, and the fees charged by Sam’s Club will depend on the amount the customer’s spend as well as the time frame that they wish to have them delivered in. For purchases of $35 or more, the fee charged will be $5.99 with a cost of $7.99 to add one hour delivery. For bills that total less than $35, customers can expect to pay a $9.99 fee with and an expedited delivery fee of $11.99.
This move has led many to speculate that another major retailer will jump on the bandwagon.
Sam’s Clubs integration with Instacart is one of the many changes that they are pushing as they are turning part of their focus to the growing online marketplace due to some of the store shutdowns in areas where populations may not be enough to keep a demand for the store. The questions many consumers are asking is, now that Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart, is utilizing Instacart for delivery, will the larger conglomerate follow suit as well?
There have been recent efforts by Walmart to compete with Amazon in the e-commerce space, with an attempt to build their own grocery delivery system in which they plan on partnering with Uber or Google to perform deliveries. Unfortunately, Walmart investors have become increasingly unhappy with the e-commerce progress of Walmart, as sales plummeted last quarter to the lowest shares since 1988. Many people are now looking to see if the new partnership between Sam’s Club and Instacart may also mean Walmart will abandon their current foray into grocery delivery and provide their services through Instacart the same as Sam’s Club.
As Sam’s Club continues to push more to get a part of the exploding ecommerce business with their new grocery delivery system, they are also focusing on simplifying their system as they have plans to reduce their membership options down to two. Spokesmen for the company have said that going forward their goal is to provide their customers with more free shipping, and a faster and more convenient order process.
Whether Walmart will continue where Sam’s Club has started will remain to be seen, but many companies can begin to look forward to this new service coming to a city near them as Sam’s Club continues to cast a wider net with their service.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
