Grocery delivery app Shipt will soon join the increasingly crowded alcohol delivery market.
Shipt will begin alcohol delivery to the Orlando, Fla., market starting on July 27th, the first time it has offered alcohol delivery. The company is working with Orlando-based retailer ABC Fine Wine & Spirits to fulfill those orders. ABC Fine Wine & Spirits has nearly 150 stores across Florida.
Shipt charges a $99 annual membership fee or a $14 monthly membership fee in exchange for unlimited free delivery on grocery orders of $35 or more. The company charges a $7 fee on all orders under $7.
Customers use the app to place an order, which is then filled by a personal shopper who goes to a grocery store, picks up the order and schedules it for delivery between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. local time.
Shipt is available to shoppers in 26 markets that are mostly concentrated in the southeastern United States. Shipt community manager Anne Adams would not say how many subscribers Shipt has, but says Orlando consistently ranks as one of the company’s busiest markets.
“As we expanded in Florida, people loved the grocery delivery service, but we continued to receive feedback about people wanting alcohol delivery,” she says.
The company’s personal shoppers, who are contract workers, must first complete an alcohol delivery training course, which Adams says can be done in a day. Those shoppers also will have scanning technology built into the company’s app to ensure that consumers receiving alcohol deliveries are 21 or older. Shipt plans to expand the alcohol delivery service to its other markets, but Adams declined to specify a time frame or say which markets will be targeted for expansion.
Shipt is entering an alcohol delivery market that is becoming increasingly crowded. Last year, Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, began testing one-hour alcohol delivery through its Prime Now program in Seattle. The service has since expanded to other markets including San Diego, New York City and Chicago. Alcohol delivery app Drizly, which is available on Apple and Android devices, now delivers to 24 markets across North America and has raised $18 million across five rounds of funding, according to CrunchBase.
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