Amazon Squeezes Instacart in Whole Foods Delivery Push
At a San Francisco store, signs of the future.
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For years, customers of the Whole Foods store on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco’s Ingleside district were greeted by a familiar sight: professional shoppers from the Instacart Inc. grocery delivery business combing the aisles. After selecting groceries for online customers, they would stage the finished bags in a spacious room on the store’s lower level, where the completed orders were picked up for home delivery.
Two weeks ago, a new crew of professional shoppers showed up at the store. Wearing no logos or other identifying marks, they used a different app to pick out orders. About a dozen of the newcomers commandeered the room downstairs, ringing up orders and sorting bags of groceries using newly installed fridges and shelves.