Sequoia Leads $8.5M Investment in Instacart

Post by anujabro » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 1:16 AM UTC

jpdoctor wrote: post #5

minimaxir wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could also argue that Sequoia now knows the difference between a doomed-to-fail grocery delivery services and a successful one after experiencing it first-hand. :)

> One could also argue that Sequoia now knows the difference between a doomed-to-fail grocery delivery services and a successful one after experiencing it first-hand. When did they experience a successful one? Groceries are incredibly low-margin businesses that don't engender a lot of interest from the end users (mutual funds for the IPO stock), not usually the purview of VCs. But perhaps this $200M grocery investmen…

I think its more appropriate to say instead of "a doomed to fail and a successful" is "a doomed to fail and a less likely doomed to fail."

Post by flipperypokery » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 3:38 PM UTC

grbalaffa wrote: post #8

flipperypokery wrote: post #6

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'…

> 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…

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.

Re: Sequoia Leads $8.5M Investment in Instacart

Re: Sequoia Leads $8.5M Investment in Instacart