Building H Index

Shipt

INDUSTRY

food

Category

food/grocery delivery service

products Profiled

Shipt grocery shopping and delivery, pickup services

H-Score

40

ranked 9th of 16 within food industry

ranked 22nd of 37 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 Safeway and HyVee, along with Target’s grocery section.

product usage

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.

influence on health-related behaviors

EATING

neutral 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.(1-5) People who cook at home more frequently also tend to have diets that have higher compliance with dietary guidelines.(6) 

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.(7)

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. “Produce” was typically at the bottom of categories displayed, if at all, and typically after “Prepared Meals.” The top menu features “Snacks & Candy” as one of the first categories and does not include “Produce.” 

Shipt does not specifically offer a “healthy” category.(8) 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 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.(9)

Online grocery delivery services can promote healthier shopping choices and promote access to healthier foods in transportation-scarce and low-resource areas.(10)

PHYSICAL ACTVITY

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 (46.8%) of users of grocery delivery services (not specific to Shipt) also shopped in person more than twice a month.(11)

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.

neutral to 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.(12) 

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.(13)

Engaging Socially

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.(14)

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.(15)

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.

Return to Building H Index report

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. R. An. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2016 Jan;70(1):97–103.

4. S.I. Kirkpatrick et al. Fast-food menu offerings vary in dietary quality, but are consistently poor. Public Health Nutr. 2014 Apr;17(4):924–31.

5. L.M. Powell and BT Nguyen. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption among children and adolescents: effect on energy, beverage, and nutrient intake. JAMA Pediatr. 2013 Jan;167(1):14–20.

6. A. Tiwari et al. Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With U.S. Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost. Am J Prev Med. 2017 May 1;52(5):616–24.

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

8. Shipt website, accessed January 28, 2022

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

10. 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

11. Downs (2022)

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. Downs (2022)

15. Shipt Members Can Now Handpick Their Favorite Shipt Shoppers. Shipt Newsroom website, August 24, 2021