Instacart adds features to increase number of deliveries

Instacart, the grocery delivery service, has been slammed with orders during the coronavirus pandemic leading to many users unable to schedule any deliveries. The company added two new features to speed up service and open up more delivery windows. 

“Fast & Flexible” and “Order Ahead” are now available in the Instacart app according to a release Wednesday. The first feature, Fast & Flexible, will assign a customer’s order to the first available shopper within a certain date range rather than request a specific delivery window. Order Ahead lets users select a delivery date up to two weeks out instead of just seven days. 

Instacart also noted it increased the number of shoppers from 200,000 to 350,000 to deal with the more than 300% increase in demand. Those workers held a strike at the end of March over pay and safety concerns over COVID-19. The company did inform shoppers on March 31 a warning about the disease as one worker did test positive for it.