Loblaw says it's exploring grocery home delivery partnership with Instacart
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 29 Sep, 2017 10:23 AM
Loblaw Companies Ltd. (TSX:L) says it's exploring the possibility of offering grocery home delivery one day.
Spokesman Kevin Groh says in a statement that the company has "engaged" a number of e-commerce innovators around the world, including Instacart, as it continues to explore the best ways to serve its customers in the future. He says that may include home delivery.
Loblaw already offers a click and collect program, where customers order their groceries online and pick up the items at a store's parking lot within a pre-selected time frame. Groh says the program will soon be at 200 of the company's stores.
California-based Instacart enables customers to shop from local stores' inventory and place an order via an app, which is then picked up by a so-called expert shopper and delivered to the customer's location.
The news comes after tech giant Amazon recently acquired Whole Foods Market, which has 13 Canadian locations. The acquisition could accelerate the development of online grocery delivery in Canada.
Currently, Canadians have few options for grocery delivery with a small number of companies, like Grocery Gateway, and a few large chains offering the service in limited locations.
PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. — Police say a Saskatchewan girl abducted from a playground last week was dropped off in a wooded area outside the city of Prince Albert.
TORONTO — A man who got stuck in a narrow gap between two buildings in downtown Toronto spent nearly eight hours in the confined space before he was freed by firefighters who broke through part of a wall to rescue him.
WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. — Firefighters on the front lines of British Columbia's raging wildfires are bracing for expected lightning and wind today, with all eyes on Williams Lake where more than 10,000 people are under an evacuation alert.
TORONTO — The Canadian dollar is soaring to levels not seen in nearly a year after the Bank of Canada announced it was hiking its key lending rate for the first time since 2010.
