Rumours of a new Vancouver Island Costco location have caused some serious buzz recently, but a new report by the Financial Post could have an even more far-reaching impact for future grocery shopping.
Reportedly, Costco’s success with online food delivery in the U.S. has prompted the company to explore a similar service in Canada.
The popular warehouse retailer began making online grocery deliveries of non-perishables to customers south of the border in October, 2017, and has expanded a partnership with Instacart to deliver fresh food.
“We are looking at sites from which we can fulfill fresh grocery orders,” confirmed Costco Canada spokesman Ron Damiani. “We are extremely happy with the results that we have had out of the U.S.”
More Convenient, But Not As Cheap
Though the move to home-delivery has been successful for Costco so far, its appeal seems to be more about ease-of-access for customers than about maintaining cheap prices.
In fact, for home delivery in the States, items tend to cost 15% – 17% more than they would in-store.
The delivery fees for the Canadian service remain to be seen.
Damiani also noted that Costco has no specific timeline for Canada’s home delivery rollout.
