Shares of rivals slip as Amazon expands same-day grocery delivery

Shares of Instacart (CART), DoorDash (DASH) and Uber (UBER) are under pressure on Wednesday after Amazon (AMZN) announced that its same-day perishable grocery delivery has expanded to over 2,300 cities.

SAME-DAY DELIVERY EXPANSION: Amazon.com announced that its same-day perishable grocery delivery has expanded to over 2,300 cities. “This expanded offering is supported by continued innovation within Amazon’s Same-Day Delivery network designed to deliver more selection, faster-innovation that puts us on track to deliver at our fastest speeds ever for Prime members globally for the third year in a row,” Amazon said in a statement. “This summer, customers in areas of Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, and New York City were enjoying fresh grocery delivery within hours. With this latest expansion, customers in areas of Boise, ID, Salt Lake City, UT, Fort Collins, CO, Omaha, NE, Sugar Land, TX, Des Moines, IA, Kennesaw, GA, Gaithersburg, MD, and more can now fold their grocery lists right into their Amazon orders,” it added.

PRICED DIFFERENTLY: According to an investigation by Consumer Reports‘ Derek Kravitz with Groundwork Collaborative, Instacart’s AI-powered algorithmic pricing experiment appears to have priced identical products differently from one customer to the next, sometimes by as much as 23%. Such pricing experiments had occurred through the platform at several major grocery retailers in the U.S., including Alberstons (ACI), Costco (COST), Kroger (KR), Safeway, Sprouts (SFM), and Target (TGT), Kravitz says, noting that algorithmic pricing is typically invisible to consumers, who usually only see the prices and fees they’re offered.

PRICE ACTION: In Wednesday afternoon trading, shares of Instacart have dropped about 6.5%, while Uber and DoorDash have slipped 5.5% and 5%, respectively.