Last updated on October 28th, 2016 at 04:12 pm
by Terrie Ellerbee/editor-Southwest
What a difference a year has made for shoppers who’d rather swing by and have their groceries brought to them than cart around the store and wait in the checkout lane.
H-E-B Curbside, Kroger ClickList and Walmart’s pickup service (no clever name yet from Bentonville) are making the lives of young mothers, in particular, much easier. All three retailers have started offering or are expanding the service in the Lone Star State.
H-E-B operates more than 300 stores in Texas, and it slowly has rolled out its Curbside program. Its website lists just five specific locations—three in San Antonio, where H-E-B is based, and one each in Austin and Houston—but more may have come online since this paper went to press. H-E-B Curbside is coming soon to Granbury, Burleson and Waco, to name a few. The service costs $4.95. Shoppers may not yet use digital coupons when placing their online orders. H-E-B Curbside is available between 7:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. Orders placed by 9 a.m. can be picked up as early as 4 p.m. the same day. Orders in by 9 p.m. will be ready as early as 7:30 a.m. the next day. Shoppers choose a 30-minute pickup time slot. The last pickup time is 8:30-9 p.m.
There also is Shipt, which has been working with H-E-B since May to deliver groceries to the doors of its customers in Houston, Austin, Dallas and other Texas markets. In addition to providing grocery delivery from H-E-B stores 24 hours per day, seven days per week, Shipt also partnered with Central Market to provide on-demand grocery delivery.
Kroger’s ClickList service is available in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas. Shoppers may only pay with credit and debit cards at this time. No cash, checks, gift card or WIC or SNAP payments are accepted. Kroger charges $4.95 per order.
To serve customers who prefer to have their groceries delivered, Instacart formed a partnership with Whole Foods Market a couple of years ago. Companies like Instacart typically are independent of the retailers. In August, Instacart expanded into Dallas, and residents can order groceries not just from Whole Foods Market, but also from Central Market (an H-E-B banner), Kroger and Tom Thumb. In May, Instacart began delivering in San Antonio. Instacart’s service has been available in Austin and Houston since 2004.
Austin-based online delivery company Favor, founded by best friends Ben Doherty and Zac Maurais, “delivers anything” and serves 13 cities in Texas and others in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Toronto, Ontario, in Canada.
One of the biggest shippers on the planet, Amazon, has taken aim at traditional grocers again with its AmazonFresh service. The online retailer said in October that it will deliver groceries in North Texas, including Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding areas. It also has changed the AmazonFresh pricing structure. Previously the fee was $299 per year; now its Prime customers can pay $14.99 each month for AmazonFresh on top of the $99 they pay annually for the two-day shipping that is one of the perks of being an Amazon Prime member.
*Editor’s note: This is part of the Texas Roundup Market Profile, which appears in its entirety in the November 2016 print edition of The Shelby Report of the Southwest.
