Instacart Switching to Sidecar App For All Deliveries
Instacart is an on-demand grocery delivery service that customers can get fresh groceries delivered to their doorstep. This is done by both Instacart shoppers who buys the food and drivers who deliver them. When they first started, they were one and the same but as they grew, they separated these two tasks in many of their major markets.
Last month, Tech Crunch wrote about how Instacart was looking to outsource some of their deliveries to third-party vendors. Their sources told them that “Instacart has recently reached out to delivery and logistics startups like Postmates, Lyft and Sidecar, among others, to initiate conversations around them making deliveries on its behalf.” In addition, it looks like Instacart wants to outsource it but somehow want to retain some control over the delivery process.
That means Instacart provides the routing for third-party drivers and delivery people making the final hand-off of groceries to the customer, rather than relying on a partner’s logistics infrastructure. Those delivery people are also rated by customers in the Instacart app, whether they are being paid by Instacart itself or one of its partners.
According to the above article, Instacart customers will still use their app to order groceries and the food will still be picked and bought by an Instacart shopper, but it may be delivered by a third party vendor. With this mindset, Instacart is looking to outsource the delivery process to potentially as many different vendors as possible in order to maintain flexibility and sufficient supply of drivers while reducing cost.
Two nights ago, there was a message sent to Sidecar Delivery drivers about Instacart using Sidecar for all of their deliveries.
Important updates and app information!
Hello, Deliveries drivers!
We’ve got some news for you that will make your deliveries even easier, plus some more information on correctly using the app.
Good news!
This week, Instacart is transitioning over to using the Sidecar app for all deliveries (woo!).It is super important that you make sure you are running the latest version of our driver app. iOS users, get it here; Android users can find it in the Google Play store.
If you’re already delivering for Instacart with their app, you’ll start noticing new hourly guarantee periods called “Instacart Hybrid” — these are the ones where we’ll be using our app.
Attached below are previews of what the latest app looks like, with a walkthrough of a typical Instacart delivery.
Important pickup instructions
There have been some reports of drivers leaving items behind at the pickup location, which causes scrambling and late or even incomplete deliveries, which really hurts our business and relationship with merchants.So remember, the most important thing you will do while you’re on a delivery is to READ THE PICKUP NOTES. There are detailed instructions of what to do, where to park, which items to take, where the items will be, etc.
This is all still in testing, and we expect to find some bugs, so if you find any, please email [email protected]. Thank you for your participation, and see you on the road!Ride on,
The Sidecar Team
From the previous article on Tech Crunch, I don’t really believe that Instacart will be moving all of their deliveries to Sidecar, even though I believe that Sidecar can handle the volume. It would be in Instacart’s best interest to have at least three different vendors for deliveries to gain an advantage of pricing and flexibility. However, it will be very difficult to maintain quality of the delivery when it is outsourced, especially to many different vendors.
I’m trying to reach out to Instacart on some more information on this, such as the status of current Instacart drivers and whether they are really moving all deliveries to Sidecar.
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