Drug store chain Walgreens announced today that it is partnering with Instacart to roll out same-day delivery service across the U.S.
According to the announcement, tens of thousands of Walgreen’s items are now available for delivery via Instacart across Illinois, with the program set to expand nationwide to roughly 8,000 stores over the coming weeks. Instacart will deliver groceries, over-the-counter medications, health and wellness products, household essentials, convenience products and more in as little as one hour.
After the partnership launch in Illinois, Instacart delivery will expand to markets such as Southeast Florida, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington D.C., New York City and more. The delivery partnership will be across all 50 states throughout the spring.
This isn’t the first delivery partnership for Walgreens. Last year the drug store company partnered with DoorDash for delivery in select U.S. cities and expanded its partnership with Postmates nationwide. Both of those announcements came during or shortly after the first major wave of the COVID-19 pandemic here in the U.S. Around that time, with people in various states of lockdown and social distance across the country, grocery e-commerce skyrocketed.
Buying food online has remained sticky with consumers in the U.S. throughout the different waves of the pandemic. The most recent market survey from Brick Meets Click showed that in January 2021, 70 million U.S. households placed an average of 2.8 grocery orders online for pickup, delivery and ship-to-home orders.
Consumers have now spent just about a year under the thumb of the pandemic and new habits have definitely formed around how we get our food and other goods. Delivery is no longer a nice to have, it’s table stakes for any household good-related retailer.
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