In the past five years or so, getting groceries in Austin has gotten a lot easier -- at least for those with an internet connection and enough spare cash to pay someone to shop for them.
Now, it's getting even easier. Sam's Club, the warehouse chain owned by Walmart, announced Tuesday that it's teaming up with Instacart to launch same-day delivery service in Austin, Dallas and St. Louis.
On Tuesday morning, it appeared the service was only available in select parts of Austin. For example, it offers service in Central Austin zip codes 78701, 78702, 78703 and 78704. But, at the moment, it is not available just north of there in 78756 and 78731.
The service provides same-day delivery on orders over $35 -- some deliveries take as little as an hour. The offerings include produce, meat, frozen foods and many of Sam's Club's non-edible products. Instacart customers won't need a membership to get access to grocery delivery, although they won't get all the same members-only pricing on some items.
“We know our members love our mix of exciting items, and appreciate it when we make life a little easier for them,"Sachin Padwal, Sam’s Club’s vice president of omnichannel and in-club product, said in a news release.
The first delivery is free. After that there is a charge -- typically $5.99 to $9.99, depending on your order. They also offer "free" two-hour deliveries via Instacart Express for a recurring annual charge of $149.
The move by Sam's Club comes a week or so after Walmart opened its' Walmart Tech ATX office downtown where its engineers are working with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence to develop new services.
The move also comes less than a month after Amazon announced it would offer free, 2-hour delivery of most of Whole Foods' products for Prime members. And it also comes just a couple weeks after Texas' largest grocery chain, H-E-B, announced it had acquired Austin on-demand delivery startup Favor.
Instacart already has similar partnerships set up at Costco, Albertsons and other stores.
