Target Partners With Instacart

The grocery delivery company is testing a pilot program with the discount retailer.

September 16, 2015

MINNEAPOLIS – Soon Minneapolis shoppers can order and receive groceries from Target without leaving their home, Fortune reports. The discount retailer has partnered with Instacart on a pilot grocery delivery program in the city.

Two Minneapolis Target stores are participating in the test. Shoppers can order baby items, pet products and food from the stores and Instacart will handle deliveries.

The test is the latest in the retailer’s expansion into online ordering and delivery. Target has a partnership with Google Express, which doesn’t include grocery items. The retailer also recently added 10 New Jersey and New York stores to its curbside pickup pilot program, which also runs in San Francisco.

The announcement comes at a time when major retailers, including Costco Wholesale, Whole Foods Market and Walmart are all scrambling to offer online groceries and delivery to keep up with Amazon.com. Business Insider Intelligence has put the online grocery market at $18 billion by 2018, fueled by a 21% acceleration each of those three years.

Target also has been focusing on revamping its grocery section, which should stretch into next year. Meanwhile, Instacart continues its own expansion with the Target partnership. Now the delivery company services 18 metro markets across the United States. Instacart uses local contractors in each city who receive customer orders on their smartphones and pick up orders in their own cars for delivery.

Read more about store-to-door delivery in the current September issue of NACS Magazine.

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