Instacart

Instacart
The rebranded logo of company Instacart after January of 2016
Type Private
Founded 2012
Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States
Area served Select U.S. cities: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and more
Founder(s) Apoorva Mehta, Max Mullen, Brandon Leonardo
Industry Retail
Services Grocery Delivery
Slogan(s) Groceries Delivered in an Hour
Website instacart.com
Native client(s) on iOS, Android

Instacart is an Internet-based grocery delivery service.

The service

Instacart's service is mainly provided through a smartphone app, available on iOS and Android platforms, apart from its website. The iOS app allows customers to use Apple Pay.[1] Initially Instacart shoppers simply went to a store and purchased the ordered items at retail and, in addition to the delivery charge, added a markup of 10 to 20 percent. As the business has developed, the firm has established relationships with grocery firms which share their (store) existing markup, allowing Instacart users to shop at in-store prices.[2][3]

The company hires delivery workers and drivers as independent contractors.[4] In June 2015, Instacart began giving shoppers in San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago the option to work as part-time employees, later extending its offer to shoppers in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington D.C.[5]


This shift in independent contract to employment status not only laid off hundreds of workers, but was in direct response to the notion that the legality of classifying their employees as independent contractors was no longer valid. [6]

Currently Instacart (also known as Maplebear, Inc.) is facing class action lawsuit charges filed by former workers represented by the Arn's Law Firm [7]

It is also facing a lawsuit by Shannon Liss-Riordin.

"Though she did not provide business names, Liss-Riordan said she expects to pursue lawsuits against other types of tech companies that are using the independent contractor approach — think Instacart for grocery deliveries, Homejoy for house cleaning, Postmates for deliveries, TaskRabbit for errands, BloomThat for flower delivery, Washio for laundry services and Spoonrocket for meal delivery." [8]

Stores

History

Instacart was started by Apoorva Mehta, a former Amazon employee.[16] The company launched its service in San Francisco, Mountain View and Palo Alto.[17] The startup company has a $2 billion valuation by investors as of May 2015.[3] Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Comcast Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator and Angel Investor Martin Romero. As of January 2015 total funding was about $275M.[18] At that time, Forbes magazine named Instacart "the Most Promising Company in America".[19] As of April 2015 the firm had about 200 employees. Actual shopping and delivery is done primarily by independent contractors, though a new policy will allow some Instacart shoppers to choose to be part-time employees.[20][21] During 2014 Instacart expanded to 15 cities: Atlanta; Austin; Boston; Boulder; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; New York City; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; San Jose; Seattle and Washington, DC, with plans to expand further in 2015.[3] In September 2015, the company hired Ravi Gupta as its first CFO. [22]

References

  1. ↑ "Instacart Announces Integration with Apple Pay". Instacart.
  2. ↑ "Greater Pricing Transparency". instacart.com. Instacart. April 23, 2015. Retrieved May 7, 2015. When that badge says "Prices are same as in-store" (which is most of the time!), it means that the prices for that store’s items on Instacart are, on average, the same as the prices that retailer regularly charges in their physical stores (more details below). For stores where the prices on Instacart represent a markup over in-store prices, we clearly display that prices "May be higher than in-store."
  3. 1 2 3 Farhad Manjoo (April 29, 2015). "Instacart’s Bet on Online Grocery Shopping". The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2015. Last year, it grew from serving just a few markets to 15 cities, and this year, it plans to expand to even more.
  4. ↑ Woodward, Curt. "Instacart shopper sues grocery delivery startup for back wages, expenses". beta Boston. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  5. ↑ "Instacart offers employee status to contract workers". Fortune. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  6. ↑ Katy Steinmetz. "Instacart Lawsuit: Labor Lawyers Claim Workers Are Employees". TIME.com. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  7. ↑ Marwebco Web Designs. "The Arns Law Firm - A Professional Corporation". Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  8. ↑ Patrick Hoge (4 February 2015). "Attorney suing Uber, Lyft in independent contractor case won similar fights for FedEx drivers, strippers (Video)". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  9. ↑ "We've Partnered with Whole Foods Market® to Offer One-Hour Delivery Across 15 Major U.S. Cities". Instacart.
  10. ↑ "HEB Partners with Instacart to Deliver Groceries in Austin". Silicon Hills News. 1 September 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  11. ↑ "We've Partnered with Petco to offer One-Hour Delivery in San Francisco and Boston". Instacart.
  12. ↑ "Petco and Instacart Add Additional Markets, Now Offering One-Hour Delivery in 14 Cities". Instacart.
  13. ↑ "Instacart expanding delivery in western suburbs". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  14. 1 2 "Instacart hires grocery shoppers to part-time jobs amid contract-labor disputes". Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  15. ↑ "Instacart Expands to Minneapolis and Partners with Target". Instacart. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  16. ↑ "Instacart Bags $2.3M to Become the Amazon of Groceries". WSJ. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  17. ↑ "Concierge grocery shopping". SFGate. 8 March 2013. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  18. ↑ Instacart. "We’ve Closed $220M Series C Round of Financing Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers". instacart.com. Instacart. Retrieved May 7, 2015. Yesterday we announced that we’ve closed a $220M round of Series C financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Other participants in the round include Comcast Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital and previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Sequoia. This brings our total funding to date to approximately $275M.
  19. ↑ Brian Solomon. "America's Most Promising Company: Instacart, The $2 Billion Grocery Delivery App". forbes.com.
  20. ↑ Farhad Manjoo (May 21, 2014). "Grocery Deliveries in Sharing Economy". The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2015. It operates according to a decentralized business model that borrows from services like Uber, Airbnb and other firms in the so-called sharing economy.
  21. ↑ O'Brien, Sarah Ashley. "The Uber effect: Instacart shifts away from contract workers". CNN Money.
  22. ↑ Loizos, Connie. "Instacart Hires Its First CFO: Ravi Gupta". www.techcrunch.com. Retrieved 30 September 2015.

External links

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