Dive Brief:
- Stop & Shop has launched same-day pickup for Peapod by Stop & Shop orders at 20 locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, according to a company press release. The company plans to expand the service to 175 stores by the end of the year.
- Customers can place their orders on the Peapod website and select the Stop & Shop of their choice for pickup. Each store will have a few designated parking spaces where customers can park, call a number and an employee will bring the groceries to their car.
- Same-day service costs $2.95. First time pickup customers can receive free service for 90 days. The company said orders can be ready for pickup in as little as four hours.
Dive Insight:
More and more Americans are doing their grocery shopping online. Recent research has found that nearly 37% of U.S. shoppers have purchased online in the past year, up 23% from the prior year. The opportunity for growth is there, and it's important that all retailers up their e-commerce game, not just the largest players.
Stop & Shop is not the first brand in the Ahold Delhaize portfolio to offer pickup services. Giant Food stores also offer pickup and delivery powered by Peapod, and Food Lion has both pickup and delivery, though it is powered by Instacart rather than Peapod in some stores. Hannaford to Go allows same day pickup at most stores.
Outside of the Ahold Delhaize group, Walmart will provide pickup at more than 3,000 stores by year's end, and Target's Drive Up service is now available at more than 1,100 stores and includes more than grocery items. Kroger has had a grocery pickup program in place for years, and Whole Foods continues to offer more pickup locations for Amazon Prime shoppers. Grocers like Hy-Vee are also adding pickup lockers to the mix.
According to a data analysis from CommonSense Robotics, home delivery is still the preferred method of fulfillment by a 4:1 margin, though retailers have focused their efforts on click-and-collect. A 2018 report from Nielsen said that click-and-collect attracts a broader shopper base than delivery and is most popular for fresh items like milk, cheese, snacks and baked goods.
Stop & Shop is still recovering from an 11-day strike earlier this year that affected stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Despite growth in its first quarter earnings report last month, the full impact of the strike on Ahold Delhaize isn’t clear. The company still has to win in the court of public opinion, and taking strides to add services that are important to its current and potential customers could go a long way.
