In Utah, grocery shopping made easy — order online for delivery to your door

Saratoga Springs • Shelly Thompson was all smiles when groceries ordered online from Smith's Marketplace arrived at her doorstep.

"This is going to make my life so much easier," she told delivery woman Lana Garrard, who produced a list of items Thompson had selected on ClickList, the online grocery-ordering service introduced last August by Smith's.

ClickList originally was set up so customers could fill out an order by phone or computer, have store employees collect their items, store them in temperature-controlled rooms if needed, and have them ready for pickup at a requested time.

In the last half of June, however, the ClickList program at new Smith's Marketplace stores in Saratoga Springs and Springville was expanded to include home deliveries.

If all goes smoothly on this trial run with delivery company PigeonShip, it's likely the service will be available this fall in nearly two dozen stores along the Wasatch Front, said Smith's e-commerce division manager Abbi Herrick.

"We're on a 60-day test run to make sure PigeonShip, Smith's and [the grocer's parent company] Kroger are all compatible and will take good care of customers," she said.

Added Smith's executive spokeswoman Marsha Gilford: "ClickList store pickup has been a huge hit with our customers for its convenience. Now the home-delivery service brings that convenience factor to a whole new level."

Delivering groceries is hardly a novel concept.

Winder Farms in West Valley City has been taking its products to people's doorsteps since 1880, branching out from a focus on milk and dairy products to now include more than 400 items.

"We focus on local and that's what separates us from the others. We work with a lot of local farms and pre-purchase products directly from them for distribution," said Winder Farms CEO Melanie Robinson, noting that many grocers were scared away from home delivery after dot.com-era company Webvan made a big splash before going bankrupt in 2001.

But the idea of home delivery seems to be entering a new age, she acknowledged, and "there's this buzz where more and more stores are trying it."

Big ones, too.

Amazon's recent acquisition of Whole Foods brings together the world's biggest purveyor of online commerce with a key player in the grocery industry.

Blue Apron, a New York City company that delivers boxes of ingredients to people for home-cooked meals, saw its shares rise modestly last month when it debuted as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. It sold 30 million shares worth more than $300 million that day, good but not quite as good as analysts had expected when the offering first was made days before the Amazon-Whole Foods announcement.

In Utah, Smith's introduction of home-delivery service is occurring at a time when San Francisco-based delivery service Instacart is initiating its service in Salt Lake and Utah counties.

"Salt Lake has been on our radar for some time. We're confident it's going to be an incredibly successful market for us," said David Holyoak, a Brigham Young University graduate who manages Instacart's operations in 33 states.

Utah's large families produce hefty grocery bills, he said, and the state's population is growing quickly with the help of people relocating to the state. In addition, the Wasatch Front offers a wide assortment of retailers from whom to choose.

Subscribers to Instacart's service can order goods from its partner stores — including Costco, Natural Grocers, Petco and Whole Foods — and get deliveries to their homes within an hour, he said.

A year's subscription, Holyoak said, normally will cost $149. But to build interest, Instacart is offering Utahns free delivery for a year if they sign up before July 15. Another incentive is $20 off an order of $35 or more for those who enter the code HISLC20 in the online checkout box at www.instacart.com.

Smith's adds an $11.95 delivery fee for each trip, Gilford said, with no minimum or maximum order required.

Thompson said she was more than willing to pay that much for the Smith's in Saratoga Springs to deliver groceries to her home in Lehi, 2 miles away.

"I thought it was a pretty reasonable amount to have someone pick out all my groceries for me," she said, noting that she works from home selling scrapbooking items.

"For me, time is money. If I have to stop working to shop, it takes time away that I could be selling and making money," Thompson added. "I hate grocery shopping. I have five kids, four at home, and it takes me two hours to shop. But with this, I can fill out an order after the kids go to bed."

Garrard has been driving for almost a year for PigeonShip, a Park City-based company that she said "takes anything anyone wants from anywhere to anywhere."

Grocery deliveries, she added, tend to be "very cool. Customers are always happy to see me. It's not like I'm bringing court papers."

Holyoak said Instacart is looking to hire 100 shoppers/delivery drivers who will be stationed near the major stores for quick dispatch when an online order is submitted.

"It's a great job for a college student, and, in Salt Lake and Utah counties, you have two big universities and several smaller ones," he said. "It's flexible. People can pick up hours whenever they can work."

Not all stores are ready to jump into the delivery business just yet, however.

Harmons Grocery is holding off but is getting into the e-commerce business, said spokeswoman Mary Rice. Its online order system for pickup at the chain's 13 stores is projected to launch later this year.

mikeg@sltrib.com