Petco Joins with Instacart For Same-Day Delivery

Petco has made a move toward boosting its online retail and service options to its customers. Partnering with Instacart, the pet store company is looking for a return from implementing same-day delivery for its pet food items.

Instacart has recently announced its partnership deal with Petco to deliver pet food items via same-day delivery. It is a $2 billion valuation for the service and it will be launched in two participating pilot cities: San Francisco and Boston. San Francisco is the hometown of Instacart and also has been the major testing spot for a number of retailers, including Google and eBay. Amazon rolled out AmazonFresh, its' own same-day grocery delivery service in its' hometown Seattle and later tested same-day delivery of products in San Francisco as well.

Petco will mark Instacart's first non-grocery partner for same-day delivery. Instacart's CEO Apoorva Mehta, told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, “Groceries are more than sufficient for us, but why stop there?”. Indeed, for any delivery company, especially utilizing mobile technology like Instacart, it makes sense to expand. Shoppers have become more comfortable with mobile convenience and will make purchases from wherever they are. Brick-and-mortar store retailers have jumped on board with same-day delivery, as Google partners with Wal-Green's, Toys-R-Us, American Eagle, and more to meet online demand.

Macy's is another example of same-day delivery expansion. The department store launched the service aggressively in 8 major US cities, including Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Chicago, Washington DC, and New Jersey. Sister company Bloomingdale's rolled out the service in some of those cities also. Deliv handles its' actual deliveries, as many retailers partner with a same-day courier like A-1 Express. The San Jose courier has a national footprint and partners with Fortune 500 companies for fast deliveries.

Instacart's couriers will pick up and deliver items, such as dog food, kitty litter, birdhouses, and more, right to the customer's The deal with Petco means Instacart’s couriers will bring to customer doors kitty litter and birdhouses as fast as an hour for fees between $3.99 and $5.99. The price is comparable to other retailers offering the service, such as Macy's. It's service is priced at a flat fee of $5 for orders over $99. Shoppers with smaller orders pay standard shipping rates, plus the flat rate.

Google Express, formerly known as Google Shopping Express, charges $4.99 per order or customers can pay $10 per month and $95 annually. Amazon Prime members get same-day delivery for $5.99 and Non-Prime members pay a fee of $9.99 for the first item and $.99 cents per additional item. Wal-Mart even offers same-day delivery in multiple US cities and Canada. Walmart To Go costs $10, regardless of the order size and in some parts of Canada the service is free, in order to compete with Amazon there.

In addition to its standard fee, Instacart makes money through fees store owners pay and product markups. Regardless, same-day delivery fees have to stay attractive in order for it to be worth it to shoppers. Now that Instacart is expanding to other products besides groceries, customers may very well use the service to pick up heavy pet items like dog food bags and kitty litter. Only time will tell with Petco's pilot program, and we will see if it proves to work.

Reference: 1.23.15, Wall Street Journal, Greg Bensinger, Instacart Now Delivers Kitty Litter With Petco Deal