Product Profile: Shipt

 

INDUSTRY

food

Category

food/grocery delivery services

product Profiled

Shipt grocery shopping and delivery, pickup services

 

H-Score

 

47

ranked 12th of 25 within the food industry

ranked 43rd of 76 overall

 

product description

 

Shipt is a delivery service owned by the Target Corporation. Shipt advertises delivery for a variety of items such as groceries, alcohol, office supplies, electronics and more. It provides access to local and national grocery stores and supermarkets, such as HEB and Meijer, along with Target’s grocery section.(1)

 

product use

 

Shoppers order items delivered from a variety of stores (from supermarket, to office supply, and pet stores) by ordering them using the Shipt website, app, and integrated ordering functions with stores’ own platforms (such as Target). Shipt generally offers same-day delivery, however pick-up options are available in select areas. Shipt presents users with a consistent interface across the different available grocers, organizing the items according to Shipt’s categorization and layout.

 

who’s affected

 

Shipt is available in over 5,000 cities and reaches 60 million households in the US. Shipt is available to anyone with a credit card or debit card. It does not accept payment via SNAP/EBT,(2) although it has committed to accepting it in the future.(3)

 
 

influence on health-related behaviors

 

EATING

neutral to slight positive influence

 

Shipt facilitates the purchase of grocery items and thus its impact on the healthfulness of its customers' diets is largely dependent on the choices that the customers make and its influence on those choices.

Broadly speaking, grocery shopping leads to more home-cooked meals, which, in general, have been shown to be healthier than meals eaten out or ordered from restaurants.(4-8) People who cook at home more frequently also tend to have diets that have higher compliance with dietary guidelines.(9) 

In Building H’s consumer research, over 90% of users of online grocery delivery services (not specific to Shipt) said that their groceries were healthier (67.9%) or as healthy as (23.2%) takeout or delivery meals.(10)

Shipt organizes its online storefront into food categories, which it features on its homepage (or home screen in the app). Just as the organization and presentation of items in a physical supermarket can influence shopper behavior, Shipt’s choices about what to display most prominently can also influence behavior. Shipt’s prioritization of categories appears to vary both regionally and seasonally. At the time of review, fruits and vegetables (collectively labeled as “produce”) were not displayed very prominently on Shipt homepages. The top menu categories included, in order, “Deals,” “Dairy,” “Pantry,” “Snacks & Candy,” Meat & Seafood,” and others. “Produce” didn’t make the menu bar (it is available by clicking “More”).(11)

Shipt does not specifically offer a “healthy” category. Shipt provides users with personal recommendations for items, although it is not clear how these recommendations are generated, and thus it is not clear if the recommendations bias users toward healthier or less healthy items. Shipt does enable users to save general dietary preferences, such as vegan, pescetarian, gluten-free, and indicate specific diets like Keto or Atkins. Items that meet the requirements of these diets are then tagged for the user so that the user can verify they’re ordering items that meet their preferences.(12) In addition, they offer users the ability to specify health-related preferences, including “AHA Heart Healthy,” “Low Sodium,” “No Added Sugar,” “Whole Grain” and more.(13)

Shipt has indicated that its most popular items are from the produce section: the top ten delivered items of 2022 included bananas, strawberries, cucumbers, raspberries and avocados.(14)

Online grocery delivery services can promote healthier shopping choices and promote access to healthier foods in transportation-scarce and low-resource areas.(15)

 

opportunities:

  • Work across the industry to pursue options to rate the healthfulness of individual food items and then integrate those ratings throughout the user experience.
  • Enable users to express preferences for how healthy they want their diet to be; align recommendations with those preferences; and provide users with feedback on how well their choices are supporting those preferences.
  • Offer EBT purchasing when eligible.
 
 

PHYSICAL ACTVITY

neutral to slight negative influence

 

While Shipt promotes home cooking, it also potentially deters customers from the physical activity associated with grocery shopping. Shipt allows customers to shop while sedentary, which can be detrimental to physical health. Note that users of online grocery delivery services typically continue to shop in person to some degree as well, so the effect is a reduction, rather than a substitution, in in-person grocery shopping. In Building H’s consumer research, nearly half (47%) of users of grocery delivery services (not specific to Shipt) also shopped in person more than twice a month.(16)

On the other hand, assuming that the grocery shopping leads to home cooking, cooking a meal certainly involves more physical activity than preparing ready-to-eat or takeout/delivery meals.

 

opportunities:

  • Consider setting pickup (vs. delivery) to be the default option, subject to conditions such as distance, weather and individual abilities.
  • Promote the pickup option as an alternative prior to finalizing a delivery order.
 
 

Sleeping

slight positive influence

 

Travel time has been shown to have a negative relationship to sleep time, so the service could improve sleep for users to the extent it cuts down on trips to the grocery store and time spent shopping.(17) 

Additionally, if Shipt’s service cuts down on stress related to grocery shopping in-person (travel, finding groceries in-store, time crunches, etc), it could also reduce stress-related decreases in sleep quality.(18)

 
 

Engaging Socially

neutral to slight negative influence

 

Shipt’s service allows customers to stay at home while shopping, unless they opt for grocery pickup. As such, the service likely reduces the casual social interactions associated with trips to grocery stores. In Building H’s consumer research, 54% of shoppers (not specific to Shipt) rated these interactions positively, as compared with 9% rating them negatively.(19)

Shipt has a “Preferred Shoppers” feature that allows customers to select shoppers who they would like to be prioritized for their orders. This could allow customers to more easily connect and build relationships with individual employees.(20)

Shipt recently introduced a “hosting hub” that facilitates party planning, thus lowering a barrier to bringing people together in groups.(21)

 

opportunities:

  • Encourage and train shoppers to interact with customers, treating the interaction as important social contact.
  • Pursue opportunities for encouraging use of the pickup option (see above).
 
 

Getting Outdoors

slight to moderate negative influence

 

To the degree that its service cuts down on trips to grocery stores and supermarkets, Shipt could potentially reduce time spent outdoors.

 

opportunities:

  • Pursue opportunities for encouraging use of the pickup option (see above).
 
 
 

Notes

 

  1. We’re more than delivery. Shipt website, accessed November 22, 2023.

  2. Shipt help: payments. Shipt website, accessed November 22, 2023.

  3. Shipt Announces New Initiatives to Address Food Insecurity at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. Shipt newsroom. September 28, 2022.

  4. Julia Wolfson and Sara Bleich. Is Cooking at Home Associated with Better Diet Quality or Weight-Loss Intention? Public Health Nutrition, Volume 18, Supplement 8 June 2015 , pp. 1397-1406.

  5. Junxiu Liu et al. Quality of Meals Consumed by US Adults at Full-Service and Fast-Food Restaurants, 2003–2016: Persistent Low Quality and Widening Disparities. The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 150, Issue 4, April 2020, pp. 873–883.

  6. R. An. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Volume 70 (2016), pp. 97–103.

  7. Sharon Kirkpatrick et al. Fast-food menu offerings vary in dietary quality, but are consistently poor. Public Health Nutrition. Volume 17, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 924–31.

  8. Lisa Powell and Binh Nguyen. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption among children and adolescents: effect on energy, beverage, and nutrient intake. JAMA Pediatrics. Volume 167, Issue 1 (January 2013), pp. 14–20.

  9. Arpita Tiwari et al. Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With U.S. Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Volume 52, Issue 5 (May 2017), pp.616–24.

  10. Steve Downs. A Survey of Modern Life: Food; Delivery Apps, Meal Kits, Groceries and Cooking Dinner. Building H on Medium. January 20, 2022.

  11. Shipt website, accessed November 22, 2023.

  12. Nicole Norfleet. Target-owned Shipt grocery delivery offers dietary preferences options. Minneapolis Star Tribune. July 8, 2021.

  13. Shipt website, accessed November 22, 2023.

  14. Shipt Reflects on Year of Growth with Second Annual Business Snapshot Report. Shipt newsroom. December 12, 2022.

  15. Tawanna R. Dillahunt et al. Online Grocery Delivery Services: An Opportunity to Address Food Disparities in Transportation-scarce Areas. CHI 2019, May 4–9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

  16. Downs (2022).

  17. Matthias Basner et al. American Time Use Survey: Sleep Time and Its Relationship to Waking Activities. Sleep, Volume 30, Issue 9, September 2007, pp. 1085–1095.

  18. Torbjörn Åkerstedt et al. Predicting sleep quality from stress and prior sleep – A study of day-to-day covariation across six weeks. Sleep Medicine, Volume 13, Issue 6, June 2012, Pages 674-679.

  19. Downs (2022).

  20. Shipt Members Can Now Handpick Their Favorite Shipt Shoppers. Shipt newsroom. August 24, 2021.

  21. Summer of Soirees! Shipt Launches Hosting Hub Feature for Party Planning, Events, and More. Shipt newsroom. June 22, 2023.