The most interesting stories in supermarket digital retail and online grocery, this week.
- LA’s Robomart bring’s the convenience store to you.
Rolling out: Robomart’s self-driving fleet of convenience-stores-in-a-van is moving from an invite-only pilot in West Hollywood, to an LA-wide test for brands and retailers.
Business model: Shoppers call the van to their location in the app for $2-5. With the heavy investment in autonomous vehicles, Robomart could face similar profit challenges as ride-hailing and q-commerce companies. Except, Robomart’s business model focusses on renting out its technology as a service to CPGs and retailers, changing them for the service.
See Robomart’s driverless vehicles in action here: https://robomart.co/
Meanwhile California-based autonomous food delivery company Nuro allows delivery of both groceries and hot food – see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L68ZzwtCon8&ab_channel=Nuro
2. Deliveroo Hop expands across London then the UK, adding further q-commerce competition
According to job adverts, Deliveroo Hop is “building a network of stores across London, the UK and other markets. Each delivery store is staffed with a team who have been specially trained to manage the operations efficiently as well as pick and pack orders in record time, with Deliveroo’s 100,000 strong rider network completing all deliveries.”
How will Deliveroo Hop compete with the already busy Q-commerce/rapid grocery delivery space? And will Deliveroo Hop continue to partner with UK supermarkets such as Morrisons, or will it start competing with supermarkets and start stocking it’s hyperlocal dark stores directly from CPGs and private label (Gopuff announced a range of own-label products last week)?
3. Instacart adds value to supermarkets with prepared meal delivery
Instacart hopes to support supermarkets to compete against takeaway delivery apps, with Ready Meals – a prepared meal ordering and delivery service for supermarkets.
Who’s signed up? Publix Super Markets, Kroger and Ahold Delhaize‘s Giant, Food Lion, Hannaford, Stop & Shop and Martin’s brands. Wakefern Food Corp.‘s ShopRite will be joining in the coming weeks.
How does it work? Shoppers order from a new Ready Meals area of the Instaccart app, and the prepared meals are then delivered to home in around 30 minutes. The service currently has a reach of 4,100 grocery stores in 35 US states.
