The Friday Checkout is a weekly column providing more insight on the news, rounding up the announcements you may have missed and sharing what’s to come.
Though grocers have become more savvy with e-commerce, they haven’t pulled back on their reliance on third-party e-commerce providers — instead, the tie-ups are growing.
In their second-quarter results released at the start of August, DoorDash and Uber executives told investors they are growing their grocery verticals. Uber CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah told investors that 15% of Uber Eats customers shop the grocery category.
The question of whether grocers would want to move away from third-party marketplaces to white-label or in-house e-commerce solutions has loomed large since the pandemic-driven e-commerce surge. But in a stabilizing online shopping environment, third-party marketplaces say they making themselves invaluable to grocers large and small.
DoorDash CEO Tony Xu told investors that large companies “are trying to tap into a very valuable base of customers, a lot of whom are coming to us for grocery and for these new verticals.”
“Most retailers can’t match our pace of innovation on their own, so by integrating with us, they get continuous improvements that drive growth with minimal cost and effort,” Instacart CEO Fidji Simo told investors.
Marketplaces are leveraging their scale to become retail media juggernauts. Instacart, for example, is building its online and in-store solutions for retailers that connect into its omnichannel retail media network. For Uber, ad spend on grocery and retail more than tripled on a year-on-year basis, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi noted.
Marketplaces also are addressing affordability challenges with e-grocery. Recent promotional pushes by Instacart helped grocers see a slight increase in delivery sales between the first and second quarters of this year, according to Brick Meets Click and Mercatus’ latest report.
As much as grocers would probably like to fully control e-commerce fulfillment and customer data, the innovative solutions and incremental revenue that these third parties provide means supermarkets likely will keep their marketplace presences.
In case you missed it
“Farm fresh” egg lawsuit won’t hatch for Kroger
A U.S. district court judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit alleging Kroger misled consumers with the “farm fresh” label to describe eggs that came from caged hens in industrial settings, Reuters reported.
Judge Charles Kocoras said that reasonable shoppers would not agree with the plaintiff’s claim that “farm fresh” necessarily meant hens “living on farms, with open green space, grass, hay and straw,” the publication noted.
Earth Fare teams with Flashfood
The specialty grocer posted on LinkedIn Wednesday that it has partnered with the food waste technology company at select stores. Flashfood’s app offers steeply discounted food that is about to expire.
Raley’s rolls out discount program for veterans and first responders
The chain announced Tuesday its new program offers 10% off the first Tuesday of each month and designated holidays throughout the year for service members and first responders. Retired and active-duty military, first responders and their families can use the discount program for in-store and online purchases.
Number of the week: 37%
That is the percentage of the U.S. online grocery market Walmart captured during the second quarter of 2024 — an all-time high for the retailer — according to Brick Meets Click and Mercatus.
What’s ahead
Earnings galore
SpartanNash and Walmart are each scheduled to host their second-quarter earnings calls on Thursday.
Inflation figures due
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to announce July’s Consumer Price Index data on Wednesday.
Latest retail sales
The U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to release retail sales data for last month on Thursday.
Impulse find
In recent years, grocers have taken extra precautions to reduce theft and shrink at their stores — but they haven’t created a system to prevent seagull thefts.
Noah Karberg of Nantucket, Massachusetts, is offering a reward for the return of his wallet after it was stolen by a seagull outside his local Stop & Shop, UPI reported. Karberg told NBC Boston he left his phone and wallet in the tray on top of his shopping cart while he was loading groceries into his truck: “I take the last couple of bags around to the backseat, come back around to the shopping cart, and there is a gull sitting on the cart, and right in front of me, grabs my wallet, flies off!”
Karberg got a video of the flying culprit as it traveled to the roof of a nearby car wash and watched as the seagull began going through the wallet’s contents, UPI reported. Karberg could do nothing but watch his cash float away in the wind.
“It was like a gull with an agenda,” he said to NBC Boston. “Tossed the cash and went straight for my Amex.”
