Is it just me or does everyone order their weekly groceries right from the comfort of their couch? Ever since the pandemic hit, I have been super lazy with going to the food store and actually picking out my groceries. The pandemic really put concerns on the way climate change impacted consumer behavior. In my opinion, Instacart was one of these apps that was very beneficial during the pandemic. This gave people the option to still get their groceries without having to leave the house due to COVID. Instacart actually started back in 2012 in San Francisco, California. By 2015 & 2016 it started moving its way across the United States and had over 200 employees who would be the shoppers as part time workers. Fast forward to 2020, they hired over 300,000 employees from March-April of 2020. This was just the beginning of the pandemic. Instacart was able to partner up with a bunch of different stores such as Rite Aid, Walmart, Staples & tons of grocery stores. As we were on a total lockdown, grocery stores still had to stay open so that people could go out and buy food but they had to limit their customers. 

These grocery delivery services such as Instacart, Peapod, Shipt and so many more make it very convenient to just order up what you need on the app and it is delivered to you within a few hours. Their services work with other participating retailers so you can shop at Aldi, or Target or even Acme. They send their employees to the store to grab you items and it is all down through the app. If they can not find something at the store, they will text you replacement items that they can grab instead. How cool is that? Platform services like these blow my mind because they are making it so much easier on my end to get the groceries I need in a new and improved way. But is it for everyone? 

As things started to loosen up, people were able to go back in the stores and shop whether they were vaccinated or not. As for my dad, he is very old school and loves to go to the store and shop for what we need. Throughout the whole pandemic, he worked and shopped for us each week so that everyone in my house did not have to go out. Although this was a bit scary for him, he was not worried about this virus one bit. He still goes shopping every Sunday morning and he calls it his alone time away from all of us. But for people like me, I work full time and go to school so ordering up my groceries from Instacart is very beneficial for me. I think that a lot of people my age use Instacart or something similar because it is so convenient for us. My grandparents also use this type of service because it is hard for them to walk around the store to the food shop. This is one way the companies need to position themselves to capture the different tastes of their customers. 

Without the help from digital marketing, I might still be stressing about when I can find the time to go food shopping this week. Digital marketing helped me find this app and let me see what it was all about. I don’t  think I could live without it now that I use it almost every week. This app truly saved me so much time and stress. I expect this app to keep blowing up just like it is. Even though we are technically at the end of the pandemic, I still rely on this app to order groceries each week.

As the pandemic ends, and technology continues to evolve, I think more apps will start to do this. I also use target to go a few times a week to grab items I need and it’s all done on the app and they bring it right out to your car when you arrive at target. These stores are making it so convenient for people to get the items they need. People should not have any excuses anymore on why they can’t get groceries. 

So, my questions for you would be, do you think there should be more apps like this out there on the digital marketing platforms? Would you use an app like this? Is there another platform like this that you use?

 

SOURCES: 

Instacart – Wikipedia

Instacart | Jobs, Benefits, Business Model, Founding Story (cleverism.com)