Grocery Delivery Service Instacart Raises $44 Million By William Alden Companies like Uber and Airbnb have prospered by allowing people to sell their services to strangers on a smartphone-powered network. Now venture capitalists are betting that a young start-up can use that principle to achieve success in the grocery business. Instacart, a two-year-old grocery delivery company, announced a $44 million round of financing on Monday led by Andreessen Horowitz. Three venture capital firms that previously invested in the company, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and Canaan Partners, participated in the latest round. The company, which is based in San Francisco, lets customers shop online from grocery stores in their area. The orders are filled by other people who have signed up to be shoppers and who…
Information Savvy Consumers Will Benefit from New Online Unit Pricing
Six major retailers are going to make it easier for consumers to price shop. This feature, mandatory in stores, has not been in place for online shopping. Now price comparisons can be done without the math necessary to equalize the quantities. US: Six Major Retailers To Reveal Unit Pricing Online Six of the biggest retailers in the US have agreed to a deal that will see them offer unit pricing information on their websites. The list of retailers includes Walmart, Costco, Walgreen, CVS, Drugstore.com, and FreshDirect – but interestingly, Amazon declined to participate. The deal, which was brokered by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, will see the companies add unit prices to their product pages by March 2015. Walmart and Costco said they would roll…
Amazon’s Local Services Market Place Will Add Much-Needed Margin To The Bottom Line
Amazon’s Local Services Market Place Will Add Much-Needed Margin to the Bottom Line Summary Amazon already runs a market place with more than 2 million third-party vendors. Amazon needs to increase margins or they will continue to be punished by investors. Their product market place has reduced the impact of losing the sales tax exemption. A local service market place would add value to the current market place without significant risk or capital investment. Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) has capitalized on their retail success by creating a massive third-party market place. The market place has over 2 million different third-party vendors. Amazon has utilizes the market place to sell third-party items alongside their own items. This has made Amazon the default website for online shopping. Why go to…
With an Amazon Smartphone, the Retailer Seeks a Tether to Consumers
With an Amazon Smartphone, the Retailer Seeks a Tether to Consumers By David Streitfeld Hold the phone: Amazon wants to burrow even deeper into your life. The retailer is expected to introduce a smartphone on Wednesday at an event in Seattle, a long-rumored project that aims to close any remaining gap between the impulse to buy and the completed act. Amazon has spent the last several years furiously investing billions of dollars on multiple fronts: constructing warehouses all over the country to deliver goods as fast as possible, building devices as varied as tablets and set-top boxes, and creating and licensing entertainment to stock those devices. It all adds up to a wildly ambitious venture without precedent in modern merchandising. Wall Street has generally cheered as competitors…
Tea. Earl Grey. Hot
No matter how often I say that to my microwave nothing happens. Yes, I am a Star Trek fan and I have visions of having a food replictor in my house. That day may be getting closer as 3D printers start producing food. The new Keurig cold solution and 3D printers will change consumer purchases to cartridges of raw materials that allow them to customize their food. The replicator will be my favorite appliance…. 3-D Printing Hits Licensing With Coca-Cola, Hershey’s and Hasbro By Michael Stone Coca-Cola was at the annual Licensing Expo in Las Vegas as usual, this time getting ready for the 100th anniversary of its iconic contour bottle next year with a booth full of vintage products. But Coca-Cola also looked forward,…
Convenience, technology leading small-store push at Walmart
Convenience, technology leading small-store push at Walmart By Jon Springer Wal-Mart Stores will open more small stores than big stores in the U.S. this year, underscoring not only that more convenient concepts like Neighborhood Markets are outperforming their larger sibling Supercenters, but a concurrent companywide effort to use digital technologies to make those small stores behave like large stores when shoppers want them to. Several presentations during media events at the retailer’s annual shareholders meeting in Bentonville, Ark., on Thursday reflected that theme, including a tour of Walmart’s newest and smallest concept, the Walmart to Go convenience store, and a review of plans for a 15,000-square-foot site dedicated to Internet grocery pickup, set to open here later this year. The 5,000-square-foot Walmart to Go, carrying just…
Your Time is Money
How much will you pay to have someone do your shopping for you? Lots of new services will do your shopping for you for a fee. These are runner services that source people who are willing select and deliver your groceries to you. Most charge a fee and some upcharge the products. This is a good solution for retailers as it provides a home delivery solution where the consumer bears the costs. It is good for consumers who are willing to make the time-money trade-off. What’s better for grocery delivery: Google, Instacart or Postmates? By Joseph Pisani NEW YORK — If you dread making supermarket runs, you’re in luck. Same-day grocery delivery services from Google, Instacart and Postmates are expanding into more cities around the country,…
Speed is the New Currency
Amazon and Walmart are making lots of big plays to ensure that they are well positioned to provide fast delivery to consumers. They are building distribution centers at an unprecedented rate, optimizing inbound transportation, and building last mile infrastructure. The race is on to provide the fastest possible delivery. You want it, you click, you get it now. Walmart’s ‘Need For Speed’ Leads to Indiana Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and one of the fastest growing online retailers, announced plans today to locate an e-commerce fulfillment center here, creating up to 303 new jobs by 2016. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company will construct and equip a new 1.2 million square-foot facility in Plainfield, Illinois. The facility, which will allow the company to process and ship orders for…
Traditional American supermarkets are being eaten alive
Traditional american supermarkets are being eaten alive By Matt Phillips The grocery store business has never been easy, given its traditionally thin margins. But the last decade has seen a fundamental transformation of the food business as giant discounters such as Wal-Mart and Target cut into food sales. According to a recent note published by equity analysts at Credit Suisse, discounters controlled 22.7% of the US retail food business in 2013, up from 16.9% in 2003. That market share came directly from traditional supermarkets, which saw their market share slip from 30.7% to 26.7% over the same time period. But discounters aren’t the only entities taking a bite out of traditional supermarkets. High-quality retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have been nibbling away at the business too, driving…
Click & Collect – The New American Drive-Thru
Click & Collect operations have been very successful in the UK and Europe with retailers like Tesco and Auchon. This concept is expanding in the US with most retailers, like Walmart, Stop & Shop, and Hannaford, testing options. Click & Collect is one of the most cost effective solutions for retailers to provide a last mile solution as the consumer bears the delivery cost. The expensive part of Click & Colect is how to select the product. The most expensive option is to pay someone to take it off the shelf that they just stocked. Most retailers are trying to carve out a small distribution space in the backroom where orders are selected. This poses a lot of challenges – separate inventories, short lead times,…