Same-day grocery delivery: ABC 11 tries out three services

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The grocery delivery service industry is on the rise with the Food Marketing Institute research finding within five to seven years, 70 percent of consumers will be grocery shopping online with sales of $100 billion.

Consumers cite convenience as the biggest reason to use same-day grocery delivery, but, can these services pick out the best produce like you do?

ABC11 put three services to the test to see how they measure up with delivery times, produce and frozen food quality, as well as delivery fees. We tried out Instacart, Shipt, and Prime Now which were all available for the Raleigh zip code for our delivery location.

ABC11 found Instacart had the most store options available for our North Raleigh zip code including BJs, Food Lion, Total Wine, Costco, CVS Pharmacy, Petco, Whole Foods, and Lowes Foods. For Instacart, we chose grocery delivery from Food Lion.

Shipt was recently purchased by Target, so, deliveries were available for Target and Harris Teeter in our zip code. We chose Harris Teeter. Prime Now is Amazon's same-day delivery on thousands of items, including groceries. We placed an order for 12 similar or exact items at the same time for all three services. All three services offered a delivery time available from 3-4 p.m. We chose the same-delivery window for all three services.

Here's how they compared with delivery fees:

For delivery times, one shopper with the service Shipt texted that he was available and could shop early or wait until our window to deliver. We chose the early shop which gave Shipt an extra early delivery time before the selected window. The other services also showed up as promised.

ABC11 found the quality of all the produce and food was good and the shoppers texted updates throughout their shopping and delivery process. The biggest issue was with frozen items. The ice cream was melting with two of the three services. The grocery store with the closest location to the delivery house had the best outcome with the ice cream still being frozen. So, the lesson learned here is if you are ordering frozen foods, you may want to consider using a service that shops at a store closest to your delivery location.

In all, we gave all three services an A but Shipt received an A+ due to the extra early delivery option, a shopper who over communicated plus the 2-week free delivery introductory offer and $15 first-time credit.

Pros:

Convenience

Easy text communication

On Time

Cons:

Fees

Food could be damaged, melting, missing, or incorrect items

Drivers are independent contractors so companies liability may be limited