Instacart Contractors in Philadelphia, Denver and Boulder Invited to Apply for Employee Positions

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 10, 2015) - Instacart (www.Instacart.com), the fast-growing grocery delivery service whose personal shoppers hand pick and deliver items from trusted local stores, announced today that it is inviting its contractor in-store shoppers in Philadelphia, Denver and Boulder to apply for newly created employee roles with expanded responsibilities.

The company currently has more than 1,000 in-store shoppers nationally. Based on its experience in other cities, Instacart expects about three-quarters of current in-store shoppers to apply for these new part-time employee positions.

Instacart began offering its contractors the option to apply for employee positions in Boston in February, and has since expanded the program to Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, DC. With today's additions, Instacart now offers the option in 15 of its 16 cities. As a result of this new option, Instacart has hired hundreds of part-time workers across the country, contributing to Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation for these employees.

As employees, Instacart shoppers will also be provided with more training and supervision, which has been proven to improve the efficiency and quality of order picking, leading to higher customer satisfaction. Those who choose to remain contractors can move into driver or combined driver/shopper roles.

Instacart offers part-time employees competitive wages that exceed the local minimum wage in each of its markets.

According to Apoorva Mehta, founder and CEO of Instacart, this development is an important part of the company's growth strategy. "In order to provide the best quality experience for Instacart customers, we wanted the ability to train and supervise our in-store shoppers, and that requires us to make them employees," said Mehta. "We're already seeing the benefits in terms of higher customer satisfaction and higher shopper retention rates -- so we think in the long term, it will be well worth the extra costs we are incurring."

Originally launched in San Francisco, and since expanded into many other cities, Instacart has fundamentally changed the traditional grocery delivery space by connecting customers with personal shoppers who shop for and deliver grocery orders in as little as one hour. This eliminates the need for costly infrastructure such as inventory, warehouses and trucks. In January 2015, Forbes named Instacart "America's Most Promising Company."

New customers can open an account at www.Instacart.com, and get free delivery on their first order of $10 or more. Instacart also offers Instacart Express -- an annual membership that eliminates delivery fees for all orders of $35 or more. The cost is just $99 per year. 

About Instacart
Instacart allows people to order groceries online by connecting them with personal shoppers who hand pick items at customers' local, favorite stores and deliver straight to their doors. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Instacart has quickly scaled to 16 cities across the US and partnered with dozens of grocery retailers, including popular national chains (Whole Foods Market, Costco, Petco) as well as local, regional grocers (Fairway Market, Bi-Rite, Plum Market). By combining a personal touch with cutting-edge technology, Instacart offers customers a simple solution to save time and eat fresh food from the grocery brands they trust. Instacart is the only grocery service that can meet today's on-demand lifestyle by delivering in as little as one hour. First delivery is free at www.Instacart.com.