
Instacart: Crowdsourcing Your Grocery Shopping - apoorvamehta
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-10/instacart-crowdsourcing-your-grocery-shopping
======
edw519
_“The one thing that we got extremely right about the Webvan investment was
that there would be huge consumer demand for home delivery of groceries, " he
says. "It’s just taken time for technology to finally catch up." _

I don't understand this at all and would really appreciate any enlightenment.

What has changed in technology in the past 12 years to enable home grocery
delivery? Broadband? Cloud storage? HTML5? AJAX? Flat design? Mobile? And if
any of these (Mobile being the most likely), how would they affect viability?

I suspect the thing that has changed more is _us_. We are probably more open
to "low tech" evolutions: lack of privacy, increased trust of strangers, crowd
sourcing, always being connected. Or maybe some clever hackers figured out a
better way of doing something new with the same basic technology.

Frankly, I can't imagine what these 10 programmers would be doing today that
couldn't have been done in 2001.

~~~
thufry
All of these new services that enable poor or lower-income people to serve
rich people (Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart) have been enabled by two main
things: an economic recession that permanently eliminated a lot of jobs and
the recovery which drove economics gains to the 1%, and smartphones, which
allow the customers or workers to send or receive requests at any time.

~~~
jdminhbg
> All of these new services that enable poor or lower-income people to serve
> rich people (Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart) have been enabled by two main
> things: an economic recession that permanently eliminated a lot of jobs and
> the recovery which drove economics gains to the 1%

The 1% don't use Uber, TaskRabbit, or Instacart; they have actual personal
drivers, servants, and chefs.

~~~
thufry
I'm using the word "1%" in the recently popularized figurative sense, the
people who make enough money to outsource things like hailing a taxi or doing
grocery shopping.

~~~
jdminhbg
That sort of makes your point an exercise in circular logic then: The recovery
drove money to people who spend money on goods and services. Well yes, the
people who work in fields that are doing well now are more likely to spend the
money they get paid on new products.

~~~
loganfrederick
I think (or at least surmised) that the circular nature of the argument is
part of the point. Previous economic happenings increased the wealth/income
gap, but these new services have arrived which allow the wealthy to increase
their standard of living while creating income for the lower classes, thus
decreasing the gap to an extent.

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yabbadabbadoo
Mike Moritz doesn't get out of bed for less than a billion dollars -
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-
gr...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-green-dots-
billions-and-whispers-of-greatness/)

Looks like Instacart is on the right path to a massive IPO :)

Good work guys!

~~~
rdouble
Mike Moritz has invested in as many duds as successes.

~~~
visakanv
A 1:1 dud-to-success ratio is to die for!

~~~
rdouble
That's not really what I meant, but I guess that's what I said. Sadly, Sequoia
funding is no guarantee of success as I know from personal experience.

------
HorizonXP
Congrats to the team on securing funding! Can't wait to see you guys expand!

Personally, I use Instacart every week to buy all of my groceries. I live in
Palo Alto, and don't own a car. With Instacart, that's easy, since I don't
have to worry about going to the grocery store, and lugging groceries back and
forth in a car. So while it may be more expensive to use Instacart, my reduced
burn-rate of not having to own and maintain a vehicle makes it a net cost-
savings.

~~~
tehwebguy
Sounds awesome but doesn't that require the assumption that you would only
ever use a car as a grocery transporter?

~~~
HorizonXP
Sure, but it removes that reason for having a car too. In my life, cars are
usually used for: a) Commuting b) Transportation of goods c) Travelling (i.e.
entertainment)

Generally, that order reflects what I use a car most for (i.e. Most of the
time, my car is for commuting.)

Instacart helps remove the need for transporting goods. Amazon helps remove
the rest. And I work at a location that makes commuting via bicycle + public
transportation extremely easy.

So I don't need a car to commute or to transport goods. So for the few times
that I need a car for entertainment, it doesn't make sense to own one. It
makes more sense to rent a car from a local Hertz, or to use ZipCar for those
one-off situations.

So Instacart is part of the solution, it isn't the entire solution.

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efields
First: Congratulations all around. Very exciting to get that much support and
validation.

Second: As much as any of us can make comprehensive grocery lists, there's a
serendipity to the grocery runs that I'm not ready to give up. Snap decisions
can be enablers for future meals. "I need 1 lb. of chicken breast but, hey,
wait… maybe I'll get 2 lb. and make double and freeze the rest for next week?"
… "Oh shit… tomato paste! Definitely used the last of that a couple days ago;
better get some more." It was a no-brainer to ditch the video rental store,
but you can't browse fresh groceries from an Apple TV.

Third: I'm not willing to trust a stranger to pick out an avocado that's just
the right ripeness for my purposes, nor do I want to type out just how ripe I
want my avocado this time.

EDIT: clarity

~~~
maxgaudin
That's a good point but I personally hate spending 45 mins plus in the grocery
store and would love to have someone bring it to my door. I find it to be a
huge waste of time. If the ripeness of your avocado is that important to you
then you'll still be one of those taking the trip to the store.

One important advantage instacart has over the in-store experience is the
filtering and sorting of goods. The amount of toilet paper or cereal to choose
from is absurd.

EDIT: After looking at the web app there appears to be no sorting/filtering
capabilities but only search. Bummer.

~~~
silencio
> One important advantage instacart has over the in-store experience is the
> filtering and sorting of goods.

That's assuming you get what you ordered in the first place, and ripeness of
an avocado is barely touching on these problems.

My boyfriend has been experimenting with ordering cat food from various
sources in SF. Necessary backstory: regular Fancy Feast comes in two
categories of textures: Classic which is a pâté style, and everything else
(Flaked, Grilled, Sliced...) which is anything but. Our cat exclusively eats
non-pâté food. So we order a 24 can box of flaked/grilled/sliced beef+poultry
or seafood, and what shows up at the door? Instacart, Postmates, and Google
Shopping Express all got it wrong (I bet AmazonFresh will too when it starts
up here) - in fact, I can't think of a single time a person got the cat food
order _right_ even though when we go shopping on our own knowing "not classic"
we never have a problem reading the boxes clearly labeled as such... To their
credit they all resolved the problem, but.. both of us and our roommate order
from all three services all the time and something always gets screwed up like
that.

If you can live with that, then awesome. We mostly do for convenience's sake,
until we get key limes as a substitute for persian limes meant for margaritas.

~~~
HorizonXP
Considering that Instacart allows you to add notes to your order, or even to
an individual item, I'm sure this is something that can be easily resolved.
Most shoppers at Instacart have paid attention to the notes, which has been
great. I've run into situations where the item I ordered is not available, so
they need to replace it with another item. Usually I add a note to my order
that tells the shopper to always pick the smaller & cheaper substitution,
since I live on my own and only cook 2 days out of the week. So my personal
experience has been that it works well, but I can see how there might be
variability in experiences amongst others.

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pbreit
When I read "crowdsourcing" in the headline I was expecting more of a
discussion about how Instacart was enlisting a broader base of "delivery"
people but it sounds like its messengers are still a pretty tight circle.
Which makes sense, since, as the article also notes, there's a quality level
that probably needs to be attained to be viable.

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amac
The strange thing about this is that in the UK, here every major food retailer
has been doing this for years. It also has to be said, they don't break-down
figures but most folks suspect it's not a profitable activity - it's a market
share activity.

~~~
tapatio
Same in South America. There's really nothing novel here. I see Instacart
getting taken out (not acquired) by Amazon within the next year or two.

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argumentum
Apoorva stop killing it, it's needless pressure on the rest of us ;)

Jk, congrats! Instacart rocks and aside from delivering groceries, is creating
work and income to a lot of people who really need it.

The so called "99%" won't be saved by politicians, but rather companies like
Instacart.

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vj44
Congrats guys! Are you planning to come to NYC this year?

~~~
stephengillie
Or maybe Mercer Island to compete with Amazon Fresh?

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hayward2
This company will fail. I don't see it being profitable on 3.99 per
delivery... Nor do I see the interest in the service outside the Bay Area.
Enjoy the VC money while it lasts guys

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rfnslyr
Shit this is exactly the idea I had. Congratulations guys, it's nice to have
validation.

