Instacart Getting Advertisers to Pay Fees for Delivery
Online shoppers hate paying delivery fees. So Instacart Inc. is getting Pepsi to foot the bill. The grocery delivery startup is working with General Mills, Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, and other consumer goods makers to cover the cost of delivery or provide other discounts when customers buy their products. In addition to the coupons, the companies pay Instacart to advertise on its website. Since introducing the program about six months...
Chipolte Struggles to Stop Food-Borne Illnesses, Win Back Customers
Chipotle Mexican Grill responded quickly when four of its workers called in sick last week with suspected cases of norovirus. The Boston-area restaurant was shuttered for cleaning, and no customers got ill. The company’s management considers that a successful outcome — a sign its updated health protocols are working. But customers, still wary of the chain after a string of outbreaks, didn’t see it that way. Headlines about the...
Food Delivery Startups a Crowded Field
Los Angeles — For generations, delivery meant pizza or Chinese takeout. Now the on-demand economy, having already upended the way people hail a ride or book a place to stay, is increasingly taking aim at what we put on our dining tables and expanding the menu in the process. You can have spicy clam and chorizo pasta delivered by Munchery one day, a gourmet sandwich dropped off curbside by UberEats on another, or come home to a box of...
New Film Examines Market Basket Saga
Concord — There was an air of pleasant routine amid the hustle and bustle at the Fort Eddy Road Market Basket in Concord on Monday. Just as the sun poked through some rain clouds, 85-year-old Kay Helms exited through the store’s automatic door, her cart pushed and eventually emptied by employee Daniel Beldin. The two had just met that day. “I just had a big order,” said Helms, who lives in Bow, N.H. Moments later, 88-year-old Fred...
Smartphone-Only ATMs Coming Soon
To the long list of things you can do with your phone — including watch a movie, buy a latte and hail a ride — prepare to add one more: get cash. Over the next few months, the nation’s three biggest banks will start rolling out ATMs that will let customers withdraw currency using their smartphones instead of debit cards — the latest step toward a future in which phones could replace bank branches and wallets. “My boys are 5 and 6 — I...
