Grocery Outlet Goes Big(ger) With Instacart

Six months after piloting online shopping and grocery delivery in partnership with Instacart, Emeryville, Calif.-based Grocery Outlet is expanding the offering to nearly 400 Grocery Outlet stores.

"The pandemic has changed the retail experience and how people shop—advancing e-commerce by a decade in just a year and a half,” Grocery Outlet CEO Eric Lindberg said when the company's e-commerce launch was announced in October. The move into online shopping and same-day delivery held the potential not only to let current Grocery Outlet customers shop in new ways but also to introduce the concept "to customers who may not have shopped with us before," Lindberg said.

Fast-forward to April, and Lindberg said the company remains "excited about the long-term potential of our e-commerce initiative and partnership with Instacart enabling us to expand our customer reach." Although it has been only a few weeks since the e-commerce and delivery offering through Instacart expanded to nearly all of Grocery Outlet's stores, "we are pleased with the smooth execution and the favorable response from independent operators and customers so far," he added.

Customers in California, Oregon, Washington and Pennsylvania can now shop from Grocery Outlet at www.instacart.com/grocery-outlet.

In a news release from San Francisco-based Instacart, Chris Rogers, the company's VP of retail, stated, "We know accessibility matters, and our successful pilot proved the value [that] delivery in as fast as an hour provides Grocery Outlet customers."