[flipperypokery]

That's $8.5M they're going to spend proving (or disproving) market viability, at which point, if it's working:

- The stores themselves will just roll out their own competing services. They can't afford for a middle man to eat their margins.

- Existing players like Fresh Direct will leverage their complete control over stock and distribution to beat them on price and service. There's a lot of wiggle room when you don't have to deal with stocking physical store shelves.

I guess, thanks to AirBNB/Uber, that 'collaborative consumption' is the new hot VC investment.

[grbalaffa]

> The stores themselves will just roll out their own competing services.

Safeway already has their own online ordering & delivery service, however it doesn't allow you to bundle items from other (possibly competing) stores. Instacart allows you to pick (for example) 3 items from Safeway, 2 items from Trader Joe's, 1 item from Costco, and 6 items from Target ... all in the same delivery. It would take a joint venture / agreement among all the major retail chains to make that happen with their own services. Instacart's model is actually safer than it seems at first glance.

[flipperypokery]

I'm not really convinced that this is an interesting feature.

People tend to choose store brands for a myriad of reasons, and stores tend to differentiate themselves based on those market divisions.

Paying a premium to get a single delivery with items from both (which is something that has a lot of logistical issues) doesn't seem like something with substantive draw.