Grocery Outlet and Instacart expand online delivery offering in USA
Instacart has expanded its US partnership with value retailer Grocery Outlet to offer same-day delivery (in as fast as an hour) from nearly 400 stores in California, Oregon, Washington and Pennsylvania.
This builds on Instacart bringing Grocery Outlet onto its app last year, making online shopping and delivery available to the latter’s customers for the first time.
The initial pilot ran for six months across nearly 70 Grocery Outlet stores in California.
“Grocery Outlet has provided millions of customers with an affordable, quality selection of fresh produce and pantry staples for more than 75 years. We know accessibility matters, and our successful pilot proved the value delivery in as fast as an hour provides Grocery Outlet customers,” says Chris Rogers, Vice President of Retail at Instacart.
“As consumers continue to seek value, selection and convenience, we’re proud to support Grocery Outlet as the retailer continues to build an engaging online experience for their customers.”
“We remain excited about the long-term potential of our e-commerce initiative and partnership with Instacart enabling us to expand our customer reach,” says Eric Lindberg, CEO at Grocery Outlet.
“Following positive results from our pilot, we recently completed a roll-out to nearly all stores.”
“While it’s only been a few weeks since the roll-out, we are pleased with the smooth execution and the favourable response from independent operators and customers so far.”
Ryan Breslow
Ryan Breslow, founder of online checkout technology startup, Bolt, recently launched an extraordinary attack on Instacart investor Sequoia Capital.
In a series of Twitter posts, Breslow claimed that “Sequoia murdered Instacart’s founder Apoorva Mehta in cold blood”.
Last year, Instacart appointed Fidji Simo as its new CEO, just seven months after she joined the grocery delivery company’s board of directors.
Simo, formerly the VP and Head of the Facebook app, replaced Mehta, with Mehta transitioning to executive chairman of the board.
Breslow said on Twitter: “As far as the mob goes, Sequoia is the Don. As vicious as they come. Their violence is done in silence. Experts at pressure and power.”
Mehta, he stated, “built one of the most transformational companies of the last decade. He made online grocery shopping go from zero to everyone. Covid helped, although it was already well on the rise.”
“Apoorva absolutely crushed it. He’s a lights out visionary and entrepreneur. No one is perfect, but Apoorva is as good as it gets. Instacart is a tough as nails business to build that no one had ever pulled off prior.”
Breslow added: “But in 2019, a dark plan began to form. Sequoia saw blood….an easy way to return money to their LPs via an IPO. Up to 100X from their 2013 investment. Apoorva, fearless and not known for compromise, was unlikely to be onboard with this plan. They needed him out.”.
“So they made one of the sneakiest moves of all time. Hiring Instacart’s CFO in 2019. Ravi Gupta joined Sequoia as a Partner Gupta knew every mistake the company had made. If you’re going to murder a founder, hire their CFO.”
“One day they held a meeting. Then out of nowhere, called a vote to kick Apoorva out as CEO. It passed immediately; and Apoorva had NO CLUE what hit him. He went into shock.”
“Sequoia and the Instacart board then: Put in a CEO who knows literally nothing about logistics; Hired Facebook’s former global ad chief, who departs within four months; Appoint President/CEO of The NYTimes and the co-founder of Home Care Assistance to the board. What??”
Breslow concluded: “Last month, Instacart slashed its valuation by almost 40% to $24 billion. They did it to attract talent at a more reasonable valuation. The reality: to prepare for an up-round IPO, a nice narrative of success, and LP cashflow.”
Instacart and Sequoia Capital did not respond to our request for comment.
