Kroger, Instacart offer 30-minute delivery of convenience items

Kroger and Instacart are opening an online convenience store with on-demand delivery.

Known as Kroger Delivery Now, the new service features an assortment of 25,000 convenience items from Kroger’s inventory. Kroger Delivery Now fulfills orders from the grocery giant's existing network of more than 2,700 stores across the U.S. Banner locations including Kroger, Ralphs, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Fry's, Mariano's, and Smith's will help supply convenience products. Kroger and Instacart first partnered in 2017.

Instacart customers will also be able to shop the Kroger Delivery Now convenience assortment for 30-minute fulfillment via the new Instacart Convenience Hub. Customers in nearly every major U.S. city can now shop for convenience products 24 hours a day, seven days a week with free priority delivery in as fast as 30 minutes for Instacart Express members on orders over $10.

Instacart Convenience Hub follows rival on-demand delivery platform DoorDash’s August 2020 rollout of a similar e-commerce channel called DashMart. Operating as local online convenience storefronts in select cities across the U.S., DashMart offers both household essentials and local restaurant products for on-demand delivery.

The DashMart assortment includes thousands of convenience, grocery and restaurant items. DoorDash is partnering with both national and local convenience, grocery and food service retailers to fulfill orders from DashMart stores, which the delivery provider owns operates and curates.

"Kroger Delivery Now is a differentiated solution in the e-commerce industry, not just the grocery sector," said Rodney McMullen, Kroger chairman and CEO. "Our new service provides customers with one more way to shop with us and addresses the importance of convenience and immediacy. Operationally, this service reaches up to 50 million households and it's an expansion of our thriving e-commerce model that demonstrates strategic interplay among our assets, expansive store network, supply chain, and dedicated fulfillment centers and fleet, joined by Instacart's unrivaled fulfillment model and last-mile technology to provide our customers with anything, anytime, anywhere without compromise.

"Last year, Kroger achieved more than $10 billion in e-commerce sales, and we're committed to doubling both our digital sales and profitability rate by the end of 2023, and expect Kroger Delivery Now will help us reach that target," said McMullen.

[Read more: Kroger momentum continues in Q4]

"We're proud to expand our long-time, strategic partnership with Kroger and together unveil Kroger Delivery Now – an entirely new way for customers to access convenience delivery nationwide. Kroger Delivery Now, available only on Kroger.com and the Instacart Marketplace, reimagines the modern convenience store by leveraging the entire network of iconic Kroger family of stores brands to offer 30-minute delivery to customers for the first time nationwide," said Fidji Simo, Instacart CEO. "Instacart has become a powerful retail enablement platform and today's expansion of our Kroger partnership is another example of our commitment to develop new solutions that help retailers grow and meet the evolving needs of their businesses and customers."