Shares of grocery delivery platform Instacart jumped about 11% last week after an analyst speculated that the company could be an acquisition target for Uber Eats.
So we asked:
Will we see Instacart acquired by Uber Eats?
And you answered:
Yes, makes total sense (69%) No way is this happening (28%) Other, tell us in the comments (3%)
And you said:
Collin Kinning, pricing professional
Where do Door Dash and GrubHub fit in all of this? Uber Eats is No. 1, Door Dash is No. 2, Instacart is No. 3, and Grubhub is No. 4; DoorDash is not profitable and not expected to be till 2025.
Now here we are with Amazon being the BIG pink elephant in the room taking away shelf-stable grocery sales from Uber Eats, Instacart, Door Dash, and more, leaving these services to focus on perishable grocery items and restaurant foods to survive.
Something's got to give with the key question being who is going to blink first. I was there years ago at Webvan and we were competing against Peapod, Home Grocer, Alice.com, and more. This, plus traditional grocers and the idea of online delivery was a challenge nobody could win even with all the investment dollars.
Here we are 20+ years later and we are in a version 2.0 where now there are a number of online delivery services for traditional grocers and only so many customer dollars available to be profitable. As a result there will have to mergers, shutdowns, and business plan changes as there is not enough money to go around.
Danielle S., creative director, leader, and strategist
Highly doubt Instacart would allow that to happen. They have their own thing going on that is more valuable in the long term; they have their own government, research, and tech innovation programs...and I think they have the potential to grow much larger than Uber Eats in the next several years. Investors should still throw money at Instacart, but not because Uber was mentioned; because Instacart has value by itself.
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