For most people, shopping still means getting in a vehicle to head to the grocery store, but this could change if more shoppers have the groceries come to them.
Recently, Whole Foods Market started advertising that it will offer grocery delivery service to customers in Sea to Sky communities including Squamish.
Delivery service is not entirely new to the community, although the distance between Squamish and the nearest Whole Foods outlet is more than the usual distance. For now, the store at Park Royal Shopping Centre in West Vancouver is making deliveries once a week to people in Squamish and Whistler.
“Right now, we’re going up once a week on Friday,” said the store’s team leader, Julie Lustig.
The service is aimed not only at residents but out-of-town customers visiting Sea to Sky. Lustig cites one example of a customer from New York travelling to Whistler who placed an order to have their groceries ready for them on their trip.
“People are looking for convenience, and that’s definitely what we try to offer,” she said.
Lustig said the company’s concierge service also means customers can get personal assistance when it comes to ordering – for example, if they have dietary issues or are interested in options like organic or locally sourced food.
“They might not know what the options are,” she said. “We take the guesswork out of that.”
Closer to home, Nesters, which operates a local store, has offered a grocery delivery service for a while, although manager Sean Daly said most people still like to shop at the store and pick out their own groceries.
“It’s really a personal thing,” he said.
Another option for customers is ordering groceries online and picking them up at a store.
At present, Loblaws, which operates several different chains including Extra Foods, said it offers its Click and Collect online service but currently only at seven Real Canadian Superstore outlets in the province.
The Overwaitea Food Group, which operates Save-On-Foods, operates an online ordering service called eComm in some areas but not in Squamish, although the company confirmed it has plans to add the service in the future. No start date has been set.
Wal-Mart, which has a store in Squamish, has been testing online service in the Canadian market, and so far it has been limited to the Ottawa region but could expand to other areas.
“We are constantly reviewing demand in areas across Canada,” said manager of corporate affairs Anika Malik.
Specialized delivery options are also available through services like spud.ca, which will deliver food from farmers’ markets from the Lower Mainland throughout the region and into adjacent areas like Sea to Sky, with deliveries in the corridor once a week.
As well, Kitchen Quickies in Squamish offers organic produce and advertises on its website that it can arrange delivery for things like gift baskets.
As to the future of home delivery, there is no clear direction. The service could become the future of grocery shopping or remain a niche market.
A Financial Post article from Oct. 26, 2015 comes down on the side of that latter, citing Nielsen survey data that found 49 per cent of people in China order groceries online for home delivery, although in a less densely populated country like Canada, the option might be less convenient. A business professor interviewed for the article said only four per cent of all food in the U.S. and one per cent in Canada is sold online.
Another Canadian Grocer article from Jan. 28, 2016, puts the figure at below one per cent and again cites low population density as one of the main reasons most people still get their groceries at stores.
