Home delivery service Instacart coming to Coeur d’Alene

The on-demand, home-delivery service Instacart is coming to the Coeur D’Alene area this week.

Area residents can have groceries and everyday essentials delivered to their doorstep the same day as they’re ordered beginning Thursday, according to a news release. Participating stores include Albertsons, Safeway, Costco, Natural Grocers and Petco.

Instacart, founded in 2012 in the Bay Area and launched in the Spokane area in September, employs private contractors from the community – similar to Uber Eats in the restaurant realm – to become personal shoppers.

Those who want items delivered to their home can go to www.instacart.com and put in their ZIP code, a list of grocers and retailers will appear from which they can schedule item pickup and delivery. Home shoppers put items in their cart from as many retailers as they’d like before hitting the purchase button. Instacart provides a preloaded debit card with the monetary total of the shopper’s order.

An Instacart contractor receives the list, does the shopping and delivers items to your home, sometimes in as little as an hour, according to the company’s website. Delivery also can be scheduled seven days in advance.

Instacart charges a fee based on a customer’s desired delivery time and size of the order. Orders must be $10 or more.

The company said it plans to hire more than 100 new shoppers during the Coeur d’Alene rollout. Those wanting to sign up as a contractor can visit shoppers.instacart.com to apply.