Rite Aid to Deliver Food & OTC

The line between food retailers continues to blur in the minds eye of the consumer, according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. Rite Aid is expanding the halo of ‘better-for-you’ by adding same-day service delivery that includes groceries, health products but not prescriptions.

When Rite Aid has partnered with Instacart to offer same-day delivery of groceries and over-the-counter, health care products through all of its drugstores it was clear that elevating service will create new electricity for the brand and help drive food and OTC sales according Johnson.

So, the Instacart service excludes prescriptions for now and we think that a state by state trial of that will be the next step announced. Currently, Rite Aid customers will be able to access the drug chain’s full catalog of grocery and health care products and daily essentials from their local store.

Jim Peters, chief operating officer at Rite Aid stated  “At Rite Aid, we are focused on providing our customers and communities with the essentials they need during these unprecedented times,” …“To further enhance our services, we have teamed up with Instacart to offer our customers another convenient method of shopping at Rite Aid from the safety and comfort of home.”

Battle for Share of Stomach

Here is how it will work; in Rite Aid stores, an Instacart personal shopper will pick, pack and deliver orders within the customer’s selected time frame, offering an alternative to in-store shopping, the companies noted. All Instacart orders now default to “leave at my door delivery” to promote social distancing and allow customers to receive deliveries safely.

Since Rite Aid has expanded its food offering in recent years, including more perishables and a larger selection of private-label items. Some of the drug chain’s locations, especially in urban markets, carry a higher percentage of food products and serve as neighborhood grocery destinations.

Now get this during 2020 fiscal year, Rite Aid’s consumables sales totaled an estimated $5.09 billion, nearly a third of the company’s retail segment sales. Delivery will drive new electricity there is no doubt.

Driving new electricity into a legacy brand with a partnership is a good move and will accelerate the marketing messaging for all companies involved according to Johnson. How is your company positioning to grow your brand, the top, and bottom line?

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply chain and includes such things as fresh foods, online ordering, delivery, plant based foods, sampling, toy’s, beer, developing brands,  grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All food and beverage retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food and beverages that are portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different.  Does your retail path forward look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Why? This new partnership does all of that.

Success does leave clues. One clue that time and time again continues to resurface is “the consumer is dynamic not static”.  Regular readers of this blog know that is the common refrain of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Our Grocerant Guru® can help your company 253-759-7869.