Wegmans begins rolling out Instacart curbside pickup

This month, Wegmans Food Markets plans to expand online grocery pickup through Instacart to all of its Rochester, N.Y.-area stores.

Wegmans said it started the 19-store rollout last week and expects to wrap it up by Feb. 28. The regional grocer had previously launched Instacart curbside pickup at two Rochester locations: last March at its Pittsford store and in September at its Chili-Paul store.

Pickup service is under way at the following Wegmans stores: Irondequoit, Ridge-Culver, Latta Road, Lyell Avenue, Mount Read, Ridgemont and East Avenue in Rochester; Brockport, N.Y.; Eastway and Holt Road in Webster, N.Y.; Fairport in East Rochester, N.Y.; Penfield, N.Y.; and Perinton, N.Y.

Click-and-collect is slated to launch on Feb. 28 at the chain’s Calkins Road and Marketplace stores in Rochester and at its locations in Canandaigua, Geneseo, Geneva and Newark, N.Y.

“Our customers are busy, so when it comes to grocery shopping, they appreciate a range of options that allows them to get the task done with ease, when and how they want,” Erica Tickle, e-commerce group manager at Wegmans, said in a statement. “Now it’s as simple as placing your order online and picking it up curbside at your convenience, all with no additional delivery fee or tipping.”

Related:Wegmans readies for opening of first New York City store

To use the pickup service, Wegmans customers go online to instacart.wegmans.com or log on to the Instacart app. Next, they select their groceries, choose a pickup time and pay for their order ($10 minimum for pickup). Shoppers then receive an order confirmation with instructions and a phone number to call when they are within 10 minutes of the store. Orders are held in a temperature-controlled staging area in the store. Upon arrival, customers pull into the designated curbside pickup lane, and a Wegmans associate loads their groceries into their car.

Wegmans already offers Instacart grocery delivery across its six-state footprint. Delivery service starts at $3.99 and is free for Instacart Express members for orders of $35 or more. Wegmans said that for delivery and pickup it adds a price increase to items ordered to cover the cost of Instacart shopping services. 

Rochester-based Wegmans operates 98 supermarkets in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts.

Instacart kicked off the national rollout of its Instacart Pickup service in November. The San Francisco-based company said the launch came after positive feedback from grocery retail partners piloting the service, which included Wegmans.