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WithShopWings,InstacartGetsAWinkAndACloneFromRocketInternet|TechCrunch

With ShopWings, Instacart Gets A Wink And A Clone From

Rocket Internet
Posted Oct 13, 2014 by Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden)

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Instacart, the fast-growing grocery ordering and delivery service that earlier this
yearclosed a $44 million round to expand to new markets, has a new clone in Europe,
courtesy ofRocket Internet, the newly-public German company that has made a very big
business out of replicating and building out e-commerce businesses in Europe and
developing markets.

ShopWings, launching today, billsitself as an online supermarket that delivers daily

goods from local grocery stores. The first market where it will be open for business is
Munich, but the idea will be to rapidly expand that in the months ahead capitalising
on some significant backing from Rocket Internet (total amount undisclosed) and the
fact that Instacart has yet to make a move here.
We believe people are busy, and busy people seek modern solutions that save them
time. ShopWings exists to replace the hassle of traditional shopping with an innovative,
time-saving alternative, so our customers can get exactly what they need, when they
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WithShopWings,InstacartGetsAWinkAndACloneFromRocketInternet|TechCrunch

need it, notes Florian Jaeger, co-founder of ShopWings. Germans spend over two years
of their lifetime in grocery stores. It therefore seems obvious to us, that online shopping
will expand a lot in coming years, saving people time for the really important
things.Other co-founders areChristoph Harsch, Andreas Veller, Conrad Bloser and
Dominik Unuetzer.
Delivery on the service costs 4.90 ($6.21), with a guaranteed drop time ofwithin two
hours of ordering. Customers select products online and ShopWings applies an
algorithm to detect where there is matching stock near to the customers location.
The basic premise is similar to that of Instacart, TaskRabbit,Uber and other
businessesbuilt onthe premise of the sharing economy: independent contractors sign
toShopWings to carry out theshopping and delivery.
The lack of human involvement in online grocery stores reduces the emotional
component of the shopping experience and could impact customer retention, the
company notes in a statement. At ShopWings, the personal shoppers are the faces
behind the website, connecting users and provider. We are the helping hand in the
everyday life of clients.

From what I understand, though, ShopWings has been created in the startup tradition
of moving fast: there are no official deals in place yet with retailers, and so all of the
pictures, for example, that have been posted on the service up to now are unofficial pics
taken and found by ShopWings team.
Rocket Internet understands the concept of economies of scale and its applying it
cleverly here: the company already has a number of other services operating in
Germany that follow a similar model, including Hello Fresh (delivering packages of
ingredients for meals) and Helpling (think TaskRabbit). Helping, for its part, is now
expanding to Southern Europe (Italy and Spain) and theAmericas (Brazil), the company
announced today.
What it can offer here potentially is a way for independent contractors to offer their
services across the range of offerings, a way of incentivising them to have more loyalty
for the wider Rocket Internet effort. Similarly, over time, Rocket Internet could use the
scale of ShopWings to negotiate deals with retailers that might apply not just to
ShopWings, but potentially feed into (pun!) its other e-commerce efforts around food
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and other products.

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The market that its tackling is big: figures from Boston Consulting estimate that ondemand, food-related tasks like grocery shopping are on track to be a $100 billion
market by 2018.

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