Introducing the New Instacart Pickup: Instacart Leader Sarah Mastrorocco Talks Curbside…

Busy people and families are increasingly looking for ways to complete their weekly grocery shop in the way that’s most convenient for them. On some days, that might mean having everything delivered right to their door. On others, it might mean swinging by the store en route from work, school, or soccer practice with a car full of kids.

In an effort to continue to support all the ways that customers want to shop from their favorite local grocers, Instacart today announced a new Instacart Pickup product and the appointment of Instacart veteran Sarah Mastrorocco to the newly-created role of General Manager, Instacart Pickup. We sat down with Sarah to talk about the new Instacart Pickup product, how she uses the service as a busy mom of two, the fast-growing curbside grocery industry, and what Instacart sees for pickup in the year ahead.

Most people know Instacart as a grocery delivery service — bringing groceries directly from stores to customers’ doors. What’s Instacart Pickup?

Instacart Pickup is our curbside eCommerce product. Instead of having groceries delivered directly to their door, customers have the option of ordering online and then swinging by the store of their choice to pick up their groceries in as fast as an hour — without ever leaving their car. Today we have more than 50 Instacart Pickup grocery partners, including grocers big and small across 30 states in the U.S. and across parts of Canada. With those 50 partners — beloved grocers like Food Lion, Gelson’s, Publix, Price Chopper, Schnucks, Shop ‘n Save, The Fresh Market, Wegmans and more — we’re now powering pickup across more than 1,500 stores in North America.

By the end of this year, we expect to more than double the number of stores offering pickup and be live with Instacart Pickup in all 50 states.

What’s new about the Instacart Pickup product?

Our new Instacart Pickup product has been rolling out to consumers gradually over the past several months and is now available to all Instacart customers across the U.S. and Canada. Among the new features, Instacart Pickup now includes features like Smart Storefronts, “Pick Your Pickup” Mapping, “On the Way” Alerts, Customized Navigation, Send a Friend or Family Member, and Alcohol Pickup. Each of these unique features are designed to drive convenience for customers, making the online ordering and curbside pickup process as seamless as possible for the busy people and families relying on our service.

As a mom of two, the new “On the Way” Alerts feature has been a huge benefit for me. By opting into location-based notifications that let the store know when I’m getting close, handoff is easier and faster than ever. Personal shoppers with groceries in-hand arrive at my car just moments after I pull up to the store.

*Want to learn more about the new Instacart Pickup features? Check out full details here.

Why the move into pickup? What’s the benefit as you see it for customers and Instacart’s grocery partners?

Customers are in the driver’s seat more so than ever, and as the rate of online grocery adoption speeds up, we’re seeing that customers’ needs vary depending on if they’re doing their weekly shop, stocking up with pantry essentials, or shopping for a special meal or recipe. Delivery is always going to be an integral part of the way that we help busy people and families get their groceries from the store to their pantry. That said, customers also value the flexibility and affordability that comes with pickup, so we want to make sure we’re enabling that kind of experience for our grocery partners and their customers.

As we think about the way we’re supporting our grocery partners, pickup represents an enormous growth opportunity for their businesses. Pickup is expected to be a $35B industry in the U.S. by the end of 2020, and we’re helping our retail partners move quickly to capitalize on that opportunity. It’s still early days, but pickup is already driving considerable growth for our retail partners. Across our retailers already using Instacart Pickup, we see an average 15% increase in online basket size on pickup orders. We’re also seeing about 20% of a store’s total Instacart sales come from pickup within 4–8 weeks of launch.

Flash forward a year or so, what does Instacart’s pickup business look like?

We began our national pickup expansion last year and saw incredible organic growth, but we’ve really only just scratched the service.

Instacart’s broader business continues to grow at an incredible pace, and this past year, pickup became our fastest-growing product. We’re pacing to have another year of triple-digit growth for pickup and, by the end of 2020, we expect Instacart to have the biggest retail pickup footprint in North America. Long-term, we think pickup has the opportunity to be a multi-billion dollar business for us. Most importantly, we’re hearing from our customers that the new service really makes their lives easier. Our fast-growing team is excited to keep innovating on their behalf.

As a member of the team here at Instacart and a busy mom, I’m thrilled to see this product continue to grow and evolve to make grocery shopping even easier.

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Sarah Mastrorocco is General Manager of Instacart Pickup. A longtime Instacart veteran and leader, Sarah works closely with partners across the organization to oversee and scale Instacart’s fast-growing pickup operation. Sarah joined Instacart nearly six years ago as the first member of the company’s Business Development team and since then has played an integral role in various leadership positions across Catalog, Account Management and, most recently, as VP of Business Development. Before Instacart, Sarah was a member of PepsiCo’s Global Operations Group, working on direct store delivery operations across North and South America. Prior to that, she was on Frito-Lay North America’s Strategy and M&A team.

What’s always in Sarah’s cart? Fresh Fruits & Veggies, Milk, and Cheerios

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Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.