Instacart to Begin Deliveries for Office Depot

Instacart has joined forces with Office Depot to begin offering same-day delivery, part of an ongoing effort by the grocery delivery platform to expand its selection of goods.

The partnership, announced in a news release Thursday (March 17), arrives 10 days after rival DoorDash announced its own deal with Office Depot and its sister company Office Max.

Instacart says its deal with the companies will allow it to deliver office and school supplies — from smaller items like notebooks and desk organizers to larger products like computers and other electronics — to customers’ doors in an hour.

In the last two years, the delivery company says it has seen consistent double-digit growth of deliveries that contained school and/or office supplies as people continue to engage in remote work and remote learning.

Read more: DoorDash Announces on-Demand Office Supply Delivery

“As workplaces across the country continue to embrace remote work, we’re proud to partner with Office Depot to unlock same-day delivery of office and school supplies for more households around the country,” Instacart Vice President of Retail Chris Rogers said in the announcement.

“We’re focused on expanding the selection available on the Instacart marketplace for customers, and the addition of another leading office supplies retailer like Office Depot helps take that one step further.”

The last few years have seen all the major aggregators expand into new non-food categories as a way to boost revenue.

For example, Instacart launched multiple non-food partnerships in February, working with home improvement retailer Lowe’s on same-day delivery and with Delta Air Lines to offer SkyMiles to reward consumers for Instacart purchases.

See also: Instacart Fees Up 24% in January YoY; CEO ‘Worried’ Inflation May Push Them Higher

Instacart is also struggling as rising inflation makes many types of meals more expensive, as we noted earlier this week, with the companies’ consumer fees up 24% in January compared to the year before.

Instacart CEO Fidji Simo recently said she’s “worried” with inflation “definitely hitting” the company. The model of the company is that the grocer sets the price, so the price is then reflected by Instacart back to its consumers.