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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Shipt

Shipt Now Lets You Pick Your Favorite Shopper

If you’ve ever had a good experience with an Uber driver, DoorDash delivery person, or pretty much any other gig worker, you instantly wish you could get them the next time you pick up the app.

Today Shipt announced it was going to let you do just that (kind of).

Shipt, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Target, today announced their new Preferred Shopping feature, which allows customers to create a list of their favorite shoppers and – provided they’re available – use one the favorites whenever the customer shops with Shipt.

Here’s how it works: If a customer has a good experience, they can rate at shopper at 5 stars and add them to a preferred shopper list. From there, the shopper gets a notice and can accept the “request” to be added to the list.

If the shopper accepts, Shipt will “prioritize” that shopper for the customer, so the two are paired (provided the shopper is available) the next time a customer opens the app.

Above: Customer and Shopper Screens for Preferred Shopper Program

Why a request? My guess is this gives the shopper a little control over whether they see a particular customer in the future since, let’s be honest, not all customers are great to work with.

It’s a nice feature, but why is Shipt going through all this trouble? Wouldn’t it be easier to pair whoever’s available with the customer? Yes, but apparently, pairing customers with preferred shoppers is good for business. Shipt’s trials showed that paired shoppers ordered more often, had higher overall satisfaction, and tipped more.

In a way, it’s not unlike asking for your favorite waiter at the corner restaurant. You develop a relationship with them, they take good care of you, tips get bigger, everyone’s happy.

Long term, however, I wonder where this goes. Do gig workers like personal shoppers start to develop essentially what equates to their own book of business? Does greater loyalty from the customer and the resulting financial benefit for shoppers lead to less turnover for the Shipt workforce?

Another question I have is whether Instacart, the 800-pound personal shopping gorilla, will go in this direction. While they’ve hinted at it as a possibility in the past, as of now, they’ve never made it happen.

But who knows? With Shipt offering the preferred shopper option, maybe Instacart will follow.

SKS 2020: Shipt CEO Says Company Not Interested in Robots

Shipt’s CEO, Kelly Caruso told audiences at the Smart Kitchen Summit today that her company is not interested in implementing robot or drone technology.

“Shipt will use technology in order drive efficiency,” Caruso said, “But that technology will be more in line with machine learning, AI and VR,” as opposed to something like drone.

Caruso continued by saying that Shipt, which is an independent unit of Target, was not going to replace their human shoppers (the gig workers who go into stores and make the deliveries). “They are critical to our success,” Caruso said.

That Shipt is focused on its human workforce is not that surprising, given that just last week the company announced it was adding an additional 100,000 shoppers to its ranks in time for the holidays. The additional headcount will bring the total number of Shipt Shoppers to 300,000.

It’s also not too surprising that Shipt will rely more on people than robots, at least for right now. While the pandemic has accelerated the desire for contactless technologies, autonomous delivery robots like those from Nuro and Starship are still in their infancy. There also remain a number of regulatory and technological hurdles that need to be overcome.

What we should keep an eye on is whether Shipt’s parent company, Target, adopts some sort of robot-powered automation to fulfill e-commerce orders. Target is a bit different from other grocery retailers because it sells so much more than foods. In other words, a micro-fulifllment center using totes and rails in the backroom of a Target can’t exactly grab a bunch of bananas and a patio furniture set.

Having said that, Shipt works with a number of different retailers, grocery and otherwise. As grocery e-commerce continues to grow into a projected $250 billion sector, both retailers and Shipt will adapt to serve customers’ evolving needs.

SKS 2020 Day Three: Food Robots, Ghost Kitchens & a Tour of the Modernist Cuisine Kitchen

Yesterday at SKS was jam-packed with great insights and conversation.

Novameat printed meat for us, we learned Pat Brown believes cell-based meat will never be a thing, and Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick outlined a four-phase plan to bring — you guessed it — cell-based meat to market. We also heard from Wired’s Joe Ray and ATK’s Lisa McManus on the proper way to use tech in the kitchen and headed into the labs, homes and headquarters of our Startup Showcase finalists to see what they’re building.

And we’re not done! Here’s what we have lined up for our final day of SKS 2020 Virtual:

Building Resiliency in Restaurants with Tech: We catch up with the leaders of Sweetgreen, Galley Solutions and Leanpath to hear how restaurants are using tech to build more resilient businesses during the pandemic.

The Online Grocery Explosion: Wall Street Journal’s Wilson Rothman talks to Shipt CEO Kelly Caruso about the changing nature of online grocery in 2020 and where it’s going in the future.

I, Restaurant: Chris Albrecht will sit down with the CEOs of Picnic, DishCraft and Bear Robotics to see how the adoption of robotics and automation is changing restaurants in the front and back of house.

The DoorDash Playbook: Brita Rosenheim will talk with DoorDash’s Tom Pickett about lessons learned and new opportunities in the food delivery market.

Ghost Kitchens Everywhere: Jenn Marston will talk with ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant experts about strategies for navigatng this red-hot market.

The OG in Molecular Gastronomy: We just added a early-day debut of my conversation with the guy who kicked off the molecular gastronomy revolution, Harold McGee, about his new book on smells and the state of cooking innovation. (Hint: he’s more excited about some other things going on in food innovation happening outside of the kitchen.)

Let’s Head Into the Modernist Kitchen: Speaking of molecular gastronomy, we’re getting a guided tour of the Modernist Cuisine by head chef Francisco Migoya.

Plus a whole lot more. (See schedule here.)

If you’d like to attend day three, you’re in luck! We’re offering a discounted day three ticket that gets you full access. See all the sessions, network with the community and more for just $99.

Shipt Adding 100,000 Shoppers in Time for the Holidays

Shipt, an independent unit of retail giant Target, announced this week that plans to add 100,000 Shoppers to its delivery force, bringing the total number of Shipt Shoppers to 300,000 in time for the holidays (hat tip to Supermarket News).

Shipt Shoppers are the gig workers who actually go into the store, choose the items on an order, and make the deliveries. Shipt now works with 120 of retail partners to deliver groceries and other household goods. Unlike other delivery services — Walmart+, Amazon Prime, etc. — Shipt doesn’t require a subscription commitment to use the service, instead allowing Shipt users to pay per delivery.

That Shipt is swelling its ranks isn’t that surprising. As noted, the holidays are approaching, and with the pandemic still going strong, many people will be eating at home instead of celebrating with nights out on the town. COVID-19 has spurred record amounts of online grocery shopping this year, and the whole grocery e-commerce sector is expected to grow to $250 billion by 2025.

As such, Shipt isn’t the only delivery service bulking up. Instacart, which increased its Shopper ranks to 750,000 to meet our pandemic grocery needs, also bolstered its warchest this week, raising another $200 million in funding. Add to that other retailers like Walmart and Amazon making aggressive same-day grocery delivery moves. Shipt needs to ensure it has a sizeable enough workforce to fulfill any influx of orders and keep people from looking elsewhere for delivery slots.

The grocery delivery battle was already cutthroat enough, but the holidays could intensify that situation even more. I’m sure it’s a topic we’ll be discussing with Shipt CEO, Kelly Caruso, as she joins us for a chat at next week’s virtual Smart Kitchen Summit. Get your ticket today and get a glimpse at the future of food delivery!

Meet Fetch, Target’s Smart Home Powered Replenishment Service

If you’re like me, when it comes to home staples like paper towels and soap, you tend to buy the same brands over and over on fairly predictable replacement cycles.

This is something Amazon realized a couple years ago with the launch of the Dash replenishment platform and product subscriptions, and now Target is getting in on the replenishment game themselves with Fetch.

So what’s Fetch? It’s a new smart home powered replenishment platform developed by Target’s Open House innovation team that enables Target customers to subscribe to home consumables and then have them auto-ordered when they run out. What’s interesting about Fetch is it uses three sensor-enabled smart products – including a paper towel dispenser, a soap dispenser and yes, a toilet paper spindle – to figure out when a consumer is out of a given product and hit the reorder button. Fetch uses algorithms to predict when you’ll run out of product and, when it reorders, send a notification to your smartphone.

According to the product’s Indiegogo video (see below), the Fetch campaign is launching on May 1st. One obvious question I had is why is it being intro’d via Indieogogo? While I’m not entirely sure (we’ve reached out to Target to ask), my guess is this is a way for Target to essentially roll out a beta of the service before it’s rolled out to a wider audience.

There’s no question that this is an answer to Amazon’s Dash and subscription platforms. What’s interesting to me is Amazon seems to have moved away from the Dash button and replenishment platform and increasingly emphasizing voice (“Alexa”) and subscription ordering (including virtual Dash buttons). That said, I do think it makes sense for Target to start to think about ways to allow customers to subscribe to products online as more consumers transition to online shopping. Combine Fetch with Target’s same day delivery service, Shipt, (which is expanding to more cities) and it’s easy to imagine never running out of paper towels or any of the household basics.

Target Jumps into Same Day Delivery Battle with Shipt Acquisition

Retail giant Target announced today that it has acquired same day delivery service Shipt for $550 milliion. It’s a keeping up with the Joneses move for Target as competitors like Amazon, Walmart ramp up the race to get you your groceries fastest.

With the Shipt acquisition, Target says it will start offering same-day delivery to roughly half of its stores by early 2018, and will be offered in all major markets before the 2018 holiday season. The service will start off with groceries, essentials, home and electronics and will expand to include all major product categories by the end of 2019.

As Recode notes, Shipt currently operates in 72 U.S. cities, customers pay $99 a year (just like Amazon Prime!) for unlimited deliveries from a number of grocery chains. Target customers will have to pay for a Shipt membership in order to get their groceries.

The Shipt acquisition follows Target’s August purchase of Grand Junction, which provides technology infrastructure for local deliveries.

Target most likely feels the, ahem, target on their backs as retailers continue to up the stakes for consumer delivery expectations. The competition is fierce:

For retailers like Target et. al., who sell everything, food and recipes and same day delivery will also become a gateway for people to purchase hard goods. This is at the heart of Walmart’s deal with Tasty. Be inspired by a recipe, buy the ingredients and any device you need to make that meal.

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, Shipt has raised roughly $65 milliion in funding and will be run as a wholly owned subsidiary of Target and will continue to sign partnership deals with other retailers.