MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google Express, Google’s same-day and overnight online delivery service, has launched a pilot in Los Angeles and San Francisco to deliver fresh groceries.
The move is an answer to rival Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Fresh grocery service and supermarket-shopping startups such as Instacart Inc., said a Bloomberg report.
The Express update is Google’s latest move in the fragmented online grocery market, which IBISWorld estimates is a $13 billion industry. Major players include Peapod, which serves markets in the Northeast and Midwest, and FreshDirect in New York City. Amazon’s grocery deliveries are available in New York, Seattle and parts of California. Instacart offers grocery delivery in 18 states and Washington, D.C., and has a partnership with Whole Foods Market.
Google Express already delivers non-perishable items.
“We’ve ... heard your feedback that you’d love for Express to help you check off your entire grocery list,” Prabhu Balasubramanian, group product manager for Google Express, said in a blog post.
The new service from Google Express offers same-day delivery of fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, dairy and frozen foods.
Deliveries for perishables start at $2.99 for members and $4.99 for non-members. Membership costs $95 a year. They arrive within a two-hour window. Google Express is raising the minimum order including fresh groceries to $35 from $15.
Amazon gives customers who pay $99 a year for Prime service the ability to get some foods delivered within a two-hour window, and offers an expanded range to those subscribed to Amazon Fresh for $299 a year, said Bloomberg.
In Los Angeles, the perishable goods will come from Costco, Smart & Final and Vicente Foods, and in San Francisco, they will come from Costco, Smart & Final and Whole Foods, according to a report by USA Today.
If the pilot goes well, Google Express will expand the service to other areas.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has tested its delivery system for months, narrowing delivery windows and labeling grocery items as “refrigerated” or “frozen” to remind people to put them away quickly, said the report.
Google Express is currently offered in California, parts of the Midwest, Boston, Chicago, Manhattan and Washington, D.C.
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