Instacart, Deliv turn up the heat in delivery wars

The options for consumers who dread the store checkout lane are exploding now that fast growing Instacart is on a hiring spree and competitor Deliv says it will be expanding into more than 100 cities.

Grocery delivery service Instacart has been rapidly expanding its network of shoppable cities and also increasing its worker reclassification efforts, giving many of its contract workers the option to become permanent employees. Meanwhile, Deliv is quickly developing one of the largest same-day delivery footprints in the country as retailers and mall operators broaden their national same-day programs.

"Today's consumers want the convenience of picking exactly when their packages will arrive – not sometime in the next two to five days or sometime before 8 p.m. It's no surprise we've experienced an organic growth increase of 800% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year," stated Daphne Carmeli, CEO of Deliv. "Deliv is more than doubling its footprint with the expansion and is enhancing the shopping experience at participating retailers across the country."

As the demand for scheduled, same-day delivery accelerates across retail segments, Instacart started a four-month pilot in Boston to find out if there were benefits to making contractors permanent employees. The company soon found perks to training and supporting workers, which it couldn’t legally do with independent contractors — well-trained employees could ensure that avocados are ripe, bananas aren’t squashed and eggs aren’t cracked before being delivered to a customer, leading to fewer returns and happier customers. And workers with a consistent schedule learned a store’s layout and were quicker at picking items, reducing the time between order and delivery.

Instacart currently operates in 16 cities, while Deliv services 17 markets.

"When we piloted same-day delivery in eight markets initially last fall, we learned that our customers appreciate the additional option of having their purchase brought to their home or office in a matter of hours. It is an important part of our value proposition as an omnichannel retailer serving customers who shop our stores, websites and apps whenever, wherever and however they prefer," said R.B. Harrison, Macy's, Inc. chief omnichannel officer. "Our ability to expand same-day delivery is rooted in local merchandise inventories at Macy's stores, as well as a newly expanded delivery footprint of our partners at Deliv."