Instacart delivery service coming to Bradenton area

Instacart, an online grocery ordering and delivery service, will begin operating in Bradenton, Sarasota, Holmes Beach, Longboat Key, Palmetto and Parrish on Thursday.

The app-based service also will launch in Jacksonville on Thursday, joining Tampa, Miami and Orlando as Florida regions served by the San Francisco-based company.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen incredible demand in the Sarasota area,” Instacart general manager Nick Friedrich said.

Instacart representatives will shop at area stores including Publix, Whole Foods Market, ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, Costco and Petco. The company offers same-day delivery, often within an hour or two of an online order being placed.

Here’s how it works: Users log onto the Instacart app or website, select from a range of stores and compile their grocery list. A personal shopper completes the order while providing real-time feedback on items, prices and delivery time, which can be scheduled up to seven days in advance.

The Instacart Express membership club offers free one-hour, two-hour and scheduled grocery deliveries over $35 for $99 a year. Monthly subscriptions are available for $14.99 per month, and users can utilize a 14-day free trial as part of the launch in the Bradenton-Sarasota area.

“Expansion into Sarasota gives us an opportunity to further service consumers in the Florida market,” Friedrich said.

Instacart, which provides services in 23 states, as well as Washington, D.C., plans to hire more than 30 personal shoppers in the Bradenton-Sarasota area, according to a company news release.

“First-time customers often tell us how life-changing it can be — getting all the time back that they used to spend shopping,” said David Osborne, another Instacart general manager.

Food- and alcohol-based delivery programs are a growing part of the app-based on-demand sector, as users go online more to order goods and services.

Shipt, another online ordering service, partnered with ABC Fine Wine & Spirits for alcohol delivery in the Bradenton-Sarasota area in October.

For more information, visit instacart.com.

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Instacart delivery service coming to Bradenton area."