Instacart delves into big-ticket retail with Best Buy

Online grocery delivery giant Instacart has continued its expansion beyond food retail through a partnership with consumer electronics chain Best Buy.

San Francisco-based Instacart said this week that it offers same-day delivery of electronics and other technology products — including laptops, televisions, home office essentials, headphones, tablets, gaming, smartwatches, streaming media players, small appliances and other items — from nearly all of Best Buy’s 1,000-plus stores in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

With the addition of Best Buy to its retail partner base, Instacart introduced Certified Delivery, a new feature designed to give customers and personal shoppers an easier way to track and confirm the delivery big-ticket items. Through Certified Delivery, Best Buy customers must acknowledge receipt of high-value products by signing for them upon delivery directly in the Instacart mobile app, which Instacart said ensures a “seamless hand-off from the store to their door.”

Certified Delivery also gives customers access to a larger selection of high-value items not previously available for same-day delivery via Instacart, such as top-end wireless and noise cancelling headphones, wearable technology and smart home devices, the company said.

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To get Instacart delivery, Best Buy U.S. customers go online to instacart.com/best-buy or select Best Buy’s storefront in the Instacart app and enter their ZIP code to choose their local store. They then can begin adding products to their virtual cart. After checkout, an Instacart shopper delivers the order within the designated time frame, which can be the same day or scheduled in advance.

“This year, we’ve expanded our offering with new and existing partners in order to provide even more selection and value to customers. As people settle into remote work and distance learning routines, we’ve seen increased demand for the same-day delivery of electronics on our marketplace,” Chris Rogers, vice president of retail at Instacart, said in a statement. “We’re proud to partner with Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., to offer customers across the country a new way to get the technology products they need delivered same-day. Whether it’s a new computer monitor for a home office, a smartwatch to track activity or a new slow cooker for the kitchen, we want to provide more ways for people to get the goods they need as quickly and safely as possible.”

For Instacart, the Best Buy partnership marks its latest foray outside the retail grocery arena. In September, Instacart unveiled a deal with Sephora to bring same-day delivery to most of the prestige beauty retailer’s more than 500 stores in the U.S. and Canada and entered the convenience store arena through a same-day delivery partnership with 7-Eleven.

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Previously, Instacart entered markets such as off-price/closeout retail with Big Lots, office retail with Staples U.S. and Canada, vitamins and supplements retail with Vitamin Shoppe and prescription delivery with Costco Wholesale. Instacart also delivers household decor from Walmart, pet care supplies from Petco, and over-the-counter medicines and health care products from CVS Pharmacy and Rite Aid. And within the grocery space, Instacart has expanded to include delivery of alcohol, deli and meal orders, as well as on-demand delivery and other services for independent grocers via partnerships with C&S Wholesale Grocers and United Natural Foods Inc. (through the former Supervalu).