<story><title>Instacart Tries to Hang on to Whole Foods as Amazon Swoops In</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/instacart-tries-to-hang-on-to-whole-foods-as-amazon-swoops-in</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IBM</author><text>Even assuming that Amazon breaks the Instacart contract I&amp;#x27;m not seeing the downside for them. Every single grocer should be more eager than ever to partner now that Amazon has shaken them to their core. It makes more sense for everyone to outsource delivery to Instacart than to have every grocery chain or retailer try to recreate it on their own. The scale of all the non-Amazon grocers should keep costs down.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>prostoalex</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;m not seeing the downside for them&lt;p&gt;The subset &amp;quot;Americans who use Instacart for Whole Foods deliveries&amp;quot; combined with the subset &amp;quot;Americans who subscribe to Amazon Fresh&amp;quot; might just add up to 100% of a subset &amp;quot;Americans who pay to have their groceries delivered&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;In other words, Amazon picked up the top end of the market, while Instacart is left with slim pickings. While their investor deck might feature millions of people worldwide ordering deliveries from their local grocery place, in reality most people (a) don&amp;#x27;t consider grocery shopping stressful, (b) prefer to pick their own produce based on personal requirements on ripeness&amp;#x2F;size&amp;#x2F;shapes&amp;#x2F;colors, (c) happen to drive by the grocery store anyways on their way from work or (d) are low-income and would rather not pay the delivery fees.</text></comment>
<story><title>Instacart Tries to Hang on to Whole Foods as Amazon Swoops In</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/instacart-tries-to-hang-on-to-whole-foods-as-amazon-swoops-in</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IBM</author><text>Even assuming that Amazon breaks the Instacart contract I&amp;#x27;m not seeing the downside for them. Every single grocer should be more eager than ever to partner now that Amazon has shaken them to their core. It makes more sense for everyone to outsource delivery to Instacart than to have every grocery chain or retailer try to recreate it on their own. The scale of all the non-Amazon grocers should keep costs down.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crabasa</author><text>Every other retailer handing their destiny to Instacart and becoming undifferentiated warehouses of goods makes tons of sense for Instacart, but little sense for the retailers.&lt;p&gt;Sure, a bunch of small&amp;#x2F;desperate retailers will do this in the short term, but the small handful that will still be around in 5-10 years know that owning the &lt;i&gt;direct&lt;/i&gt; relationship with the customer is non-negotiable.</text></comment>