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Google is adding fruits, vegetables, meat and milk to its Google Express deliveries, answering rival Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Fresh grocery service and supermarket-shopping startups for example Instacart Inc.
Google will add perishable groceries to select neighbourhoods in San Francisco and La, the organization said Wednesday. Deliveries are US$2.99 for members and US$4.99 for everyone else. Membership costs US$95 a year. Amazon gives customers who pay US$99 annually for Prime service the opportunity to get some foods delivered inside a two-hour window, while offering an expanded range to those enrolled in Amazon Fresh for US$299 a year.
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The Express update is Google’s latest move in the fragmented online grocery market, which IBISWorld estimates is a US$13 billion industry. Major players include Peapod, a subsidiary of Royal Ahold NV, which serves markets in the Northeast and Midwest, and FreshDirect in New York City. Amazon’s grocery deliveries are available in New York, Seattle and parts of California. Instacart offers grocery delivery in 18 states and Washington, D.C. and has a partnership with Whole Foods Market.
Delivering perishable groceries is much more difficult than non- perishable items which can be left on doorsteps, and groceries really are a low-margin business. Amazon and Google are seeking to create their technological savvy to bear on the problem and therefore are developing systems that may eventually see drones or self-driving cars deliver products to a person’s home.
Bloomberg News
