Home delivery will be available in West Michigan starting March 29. That is also the next winning Wednesday promotion for the Grand Rapids Griffins.
Meijer stores across West Michigan will begin offering home delivery next week.
Meijer is partnering with an app called Shipt to provide the employees who shop for and deliver the groceries.
The supermarket giant started testing the service last fall at its first Detroit store, located at the old state fairgrounds site at 8 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue, and Detroit is buying in. Some 65,000 orders have been placed and delivered since the September launch.
The Meijer located at the intersection of 8 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue in Detroit. (March 22, 2017)
“Shipt has been a big hit in Detroit. Immediately after we launched, we had such a great demand we had to hire 200 more shoppers the second week,” said Julie Coop of Shipt.
Customers can specify in the Shipt app how they want their produce to look.
Sebastian, Meijer’s director of digital shopping, says home delivery has been popular with a variety of customers from college students to mothers with kids at home to senior citizens. He explained that the app will get to know those customers.
“The app is built with technology so that over time we learn what you buy and what you like, so we’re able to personalize that experience directly in the app,” Sebastian said.
Working with the app, Shipt employees will confirm that you’ll get what you ordered. As Coop shopped on Wednesday, she found herself with a question, so she scanned a UPC to make sure she was buying the right thing.
When she had collected everything on the customer’s order, she went through the checkout lane just like everyone else. She paid with a pre-loaded cash card from Shipt so her customer wouldn’t have to give her any money directly.
Then she got in her car and headed off to her destination. About 10 minutes later, she arrived at the Berkley home of Ryan and Amber Weston with their groceries.
The Westons have been on board with Meijer home delivery since day one.
“We both work a ton. We have three kids. It’s kind of like another chore where to get them out and to get them to the grocery store, to finish shopping, get home, unpack, it’s like three hours,” Amber Weston said.
That chore used to fall to her, but now that they have delivery, her husband is getting involved, too.
“I’ve come home from hockey at midnight, 12:30, 1 a.m. I’ll have the groceries scheduled to come at one o’clock when I get home,” Ryan Weston said.
Shipt will deliver groceries 24 hours a day.
The Westons say the service has cut down on their grocery bill, too. As parents know, when you shop with your kids, you always end up with something extra in the cart.
The service rolls out to the Grand Rapids market on March 29. If your zip code is covered, Shipt will deliver to your home.
Home delivery will roll out to the Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Ind. markets next month and all Meijer markets by the fall. The service is expected to create 10,000 jobs in six states in 2017.
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