Introducing Instacart Business: Taking Care of Business So You Can Take Care of Yours 

Instacart begins to roll out new business-focused offering highlighting retailers Costco Business Center, Staples, Restaurant Depot, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Gordon Food Service, with a suite of products dedicated to helping local businesses save time, save money, and stay focused.

The last few years have presented a number of challenges for businesses – from supply chain issues and staffing shortages, to record inflation and an economic downturn. These factors have joined existing headwinds like untenable inventory costs, rising real estate prices and other overhead increases, putting a vise grip on business owners. 

While difficult for any business to navigate, challenges like these are more acute for local and small businesses, like plumbers and electricians, boutiques, salons, cafés, daycares, legal offices, and more. These businesses often manage multiple vendors to get the best prices on organizational staples from paper and pens to bananas and coffee, and, relative to larger businesses, have smaller order volumes – often translating to higher prices and prohibitive minimums. And with lean operations, teams often wear multiple hats, are time-strapped and busy with the demands of their job. 

Despite these challenges, small and local businesses continue to find resilient ways to thrive thanks to innovative approaches and new technologies that help them streamline operations and better serve their customers. Small businesses that lean on technology platforms, for example, are more likely to see growth in their sales, profits, and employment, and 79% of small business owners agree that the right technology solutions can help increase financial performance in uncertain times – with 36% planning to increase tech spending in 2023. 

We’re officially open for business.

At Instacart, we don’t believe that the cost of doing business should be so costly. That’s why today we’re excited to announce that Instacart is officially open for business with the launch of Instacart Business. From stocking up on snacks in the office break room to getting last-minute supplies delivered to a family-owned restaurant in a pinch, our affordable, convenient and flexible marketplace connects retailers to businesses, but with some new updates tailor-made for this important community.

Businesses are already turning to us to meet these needs and see value in using Instacart. Each quarter, we fulfill millions of orders from businesses* that shop from retailers they trust to get the food and supplies they need to run their day-to-day operations. 

“Shopping with Instacart has helped our business tremendously; it saves us hours a day since we no longer need to make runs to multiple stores, and it allows us to keep our out-of-state location easily stocked when we’re at our home store in Baltimore,” said Shawn Parker, Co-Founder of Connie’s Chicken and Waffles. “We really appreciate the flexibility; our normal vendors require a few day’s notice, and with Instacart we can get same-day delivery or order-in-advance. We are also able to chat with Instacart shoppers in real-time to adjust our order based on the in-store inventory, so we don’t run out of critical items. We have found that our Instacart shoppers commonly get us hard-to-find items our typical vendors can’t.”

“Instacart is a staple in my preschool programming; it’s a convenient, personalized shopping experience that gives us better options for the children we serve,” said Dr. Tamar Andrews, Senior Director of Early Childhood Education and Engagement at Temple Isaiah Preschool in Los Angeles. “We’ve tried to use other vendors, but we had less control over the quality of fresh foods, which really matters when you’re serving kids. The beauty of Instacart is that the second that the shopper has started, I can say, ‘I need green bananas’- we’re able to really tailor our orders to what we need on a given day. And I’ll often get the same shopper over and over again, so they learn our preferences.”

Save money. Save time. Stay focused. 

Instacart Business will build upon this strong foundation with a suite of features and business-centric retailer offerings to further empower businesses to save on costs, time, and resources.

Inventory, for example, can often eat up as much as 25% of a business’s budget and drive disproportionate upfront start-up costs. And, with labor representing as much as 70% of a small business’ spending, businesses suffer when valuable employee time is spent making runs to the store for last-minute supplies. Instacart Business allows purchasers easy access and affordable selection from retailers they already trust – with no monthly minimums, no additional contracts to shop and same-day delivery that allows businesses to “skip the ship” on prohibitive delivery fees, bypass costly employee runs to the store, and stock only the inventory they need at a given time. Instacart Business delivers what businesses really need, exactly when they need it by partnering with more than 1,100 national, regional and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in the U.S. and Canada.

Today, business owners and office managers can go to instacart.com/business to tell us more about their business and get shopping on Instacart in just three clicks – skipping multiple lengthy onboarding processes across multiple vendors.  They’ll also be able to join the waitlist for new features and, over the coming months, take advantage of new business-friendly features that will help them spend less time shopping, and more time focusing on what matters most: taking care of business.

• Business-friendly retailers: Businesses can search and shop more than 1.5 million unique products on Instacart, including bulk and value essentials from partners like Costco Business Center, Staples, Restaurant Depot, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Gordon Food Service. 

“For many business owners, there aren’t enough hours in the day, so they need multiple options to choose what works for them given their schedules,” said Rob Parker, SVP, Costco Business Center. “We’ve always offered the flexibility to shop our selection of business-focused items in person or via local delivery, and with the option to shop from any of our 23 locations via Instacart, business owners can stay at their business, yet, get what they need within hours, and get back to business quickly.”

“Staples is thrilled to be a part of the launch of Instacart Business,” said Ory Adler, VP, Digital   Loyalty, Staples US Retail. “We know that every minute of a small business owner’s day is critical, and with Instacart Business they now have easy, same-day delivery access to our extensive Staples product assortment and print services, saving them valuable time to focus on their business.”

• Stock lists: Instacart Business customers can simplify their operations and streamline spend by gathering all of their business needs into a shopping list that can be shared with their team and ordered with a few taps.

• Easy re-ordering and auto-order capabilities: Teams can save themselves the headache of having to recreate past orders manually by adding all items from a previous order to their cart in just a few taps, and purchasers can leverage the simple Auto-Order feature for any items that they might need on a rolling basis.

• Flexible delivery options: Businesses can get the best of Instacart via flexible delivery options like same-day delivery for last-minute needs in as little as 30 minutes, discounted no-rush delivery, and long distance delivery options to ensure they get the perfect supplies, right when they need them.

• Business credits: For the first time, select business customers can distribute credits to teams and locations with category restrictions, invoicing, and monthly reporting. Businesses can indicate interest in participating in business credits when they join Instacart Business.

• Tax exemption benefits: In select states, eligible pilot businesses like nonprofits, healthcare, and political organizations can save on eligible tax-exempt items by providing their valid tax exemption certificate. Business owners interested in applying for tax exemption for their business can join our waitlist when they join Instacart Business.

Supporting diverse small business owners with their operational needs and more.

We’re inspired by the millions of businesses that make a difference each day in the lives of the people they serve. We celebrate their entrepreneurial spirit and recognize their determination. Instacart is proud to support local businesses, because they’ve taken care of us, our families, and our communities. In that spirit, we’re also partnering with national organizations that expand access to diverse small businesses to help them not only grow, but thrive. We are excited to work with the U.S. Black Chambers, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Pan Asian American Chambers of Commerce EF, Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, and Black Enterprise in our efforts. Combined, they represent hundreds of thousands of diverse businesses across the country. With our partnership, we will help businesses expand their network and provide access to training and informational resources to continue to thrive with technology and compete.

“For small business owners, every minute and every dollar saved means more time and resources they can invest into running and growing their companies,” said Ron Busby Sr., President and CEO of U.S. Black Chambers. “Thanks to Instacart Business, Black-owned businesses will now be able to affordably access the goods and supplies they need to operate their companies.”

To get started with Instacart Business, visit instacart.com/business and tell us more about your business. For a limited time, new Instacart users can get $50 off an order of $200.**

*Based on the number of orders placed with business credit cards each quarter in 2022.

**New Instacart users only, limited availability to 10,000 of the first businesses to onboard by March 10th, 2023.

Asha Sharma

Author

As the COO of Instacart, Asha oversees the Instacart Marketplace, which includes the Instacart App, Instacart Logistics, Growth and Marketing. She also focuses on engaging new and returning customers as Instacart continues to serve as a lifeline for millions of people across North America. Asha is known for building strong teams in high growth environments and creating product experiences that are beloved by people around the world. She joined Instacart from Facebook, where she was Vice President of Product for many of the company’s private communications products across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. During her time at Facebook, Asha also previously served as VP of Product for Messenger, and before that, as Head of Product for Social Impact. Before Facebook, Asha was the COO of Porch.com, where she spent years building the business from the ground up and was responsible for helping scale the company’s operations, product, marketing, and growth. Prior to joining Porch, she worked in marketing and operations at Microsoft. Asha is focused on ensuring we’re building products that people love and putting customers at the forefront of our decision making across the entire company.