Well, this episode came out on December 17, 2018. It’s a little dated now, you may have noticed. Walmart still has grocery pickup. The thing is, everybody does now. Our regional chain in this area has it, too.
But the big thing that changed this economic sector forever was the pandemic that swept through the world from 2020 to 2022. In the early days, people were not leaving their homes for much of anything, so businesses adjusted. No-contact pickup was available almost everywhere, from Dillard’s to your local steak joint and everything in between. Then came Instacart.
Instacart, as a company, was founded in 2012 in Canada. In 2018, when the Walmart pickup episode was published, Instacart was offering a pickup service as well, acting as the app for stores that, unlike Walmart, did not have their own online service portal or app. In 2020, they forged an agreement with Walmart to provide delivery services. Since then they have added pretty much every grocery and other retailers as well to their online marketplace. I personally use Instacart whenever I’m not planning to go out of the house, and I want to get something from the grocery store.
Other delivery services are also readily available, including Grubhub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash.
In the episode, I talked about why I no longer used Walmart Pickup. Sitting in the car wasn’t doing my health any good, and I thought it was worth the extra time to get a little walking in while I shopped. Sitting at home getting a delivery is no different unless you have a very long driveway. It makes it easy to get good food, but it also makes it easy to get bad food or too much food, all without much more than a mouse click. Maybe that’s nothing to worry about, but it goes through my mind a lot. There’s something to be said for not having certain foods around, but online delivery in an hour or two makes it almost like having those foods available at any time—something to consider.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instacart
Photo by RDNE Stock project: https://www.pexels.com/photo/food-road-pizza-man-7363242/