Dive Brief:
- Stop & Shop will add three new warerooms and bring pickup service to at least 50 more locations in 2020 to keep up with elevated e-commerce demand, the company announcedin a press release.
- The retailer currently operates 21 warerooms, which are e-commerce fulfillment spaces that are typically attached to brick-and-mortar stores and feature manual order picking and packing, according to a Stop & Shop spokesperson. Grocery pickup, which Stop & Shop launched last summer, is currently available at 212 stores, and orders are available for customers to collect in as little as four hours.
- The grocer also recently expanded its partnership with Instacart, which now offers same-day delivery service from 321 Stop & Shop stores. Stop & Shop first partnered with the company in 2017.
Dive Insight:
Stop & Shop’s latest moves are intended to simplify online grocery access, support growth in e-commerce and add capacity for pickup and delivery as more people choose to shop both in-store and online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Company president Gordon Reid said in a statement that a seamless omnichannel experience was a strategic priority for Stop & Shop before the pandemic, and with rapid adoption of online grocery in recent months the retailer is working to continue improving its digital infrastructure.
Stop & Shop has quickly accelerated the availability of grocery pickup. When it was introduced last June, same-day pickup was available from just 20 stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. The service's rapid growth over the last year and the addition of more warerooms suggests the retailer is seeing a positive response from customers.
Stop & Shop’s e-commerce growth is also creating a need for additional workers. The company said it has hired more than 750 new employees since March to support online operations. Last fall, Stop & Shop made a push to hire 250 people to staff warerooms, where employees manually pick orders.
The expansion with Instacart is also a major step forward for Stop & Shop’s delivery capabilities. It brings the number of Stop & Shop locations where Instacart offers service to 321, meaning same-day contactless delivery is now available from about 75% of Stop & Shop's stores.
