Instacart is reportedly seeking to cut its human labor workforce of shoppers delivering goods to online customers by using automation and robots to reduce labor costs.
The company would not cut all human workers from its roster but aims to use robots for tasks such as gathering goods from automated fulfillment centers the company would build across the nation, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing internal planning from Instacart.
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Documents from the company date back to July and December 2020, and Instacart had delayed some of its automation planning, sources familiar with the matter said. The fulfillment centers would be built into some partnering grocery stores in addition to some stand-alone facilities, according to internal documents.
“Shoppers are and will continue to be central to Instacart and our service, and any suggestion otherwise is wholly inaccurate,” an Instacart spokesperson told the Washington Examiner Tuesday in response to reports. Instacart is “constantly exploring new tools and technologies that support the needs of the 600 retailers we partner with and further enable their businesses to grow and scale over the long-term.”
While no motion has been set to develop an automated process for Instacart, the company issued five proposals in 2020 to companies that would construct the automated infrastructure, sources told Bloomberg.
“Instacart is vulnerable to losing customers,” supply-chain consultant Brittain Ladd told Bloomberg, noting some grocery companies such as Amazon-owned Whole Foods are already working on their own automated fulfillment mechanisms and e-commerce operations in-house.
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“I’m not convinced that Instacart’s customers will outsource their online grocery fulfillment. Many grocery retailers want to end the use of third parties to fulfill their online orders,” Ladd said.
