Another grocery delivery service debuts in Atlanta

For now, Instacart is only available inside the Perimeter for neighborhoods including Buckhead, Midtown, downtown, Decatur, Virginia-Highland, Brookhaven, West Atlanta, Lenox and Old Fourth Ward. It will expand to areas outside the Perimeter in the coming weeks, says Matt O’Connor, who is launching the service in the metro area. Atlanta is the 12th city to have an Instacart presence and the first in the Southeast, he says.

You can save a few bucks if you’re not pressed for time. Two-hour Instacart delivery costs $3.99 on a minimum $35 order as does scheduling your grocery delivery for a one-hour time period later in the day, O’Connor says. If your order is less than $35, one-hour delivery costs $9.99, and two-hour or scheduled delivery is $7.99.

If you’re not a Costco member, this is a way around that barrier, since Instacart does not require a Costco membership to order items from the store. The company expects to add other stores in the future. Other cities have stores such as Whole Foods Market and Safeway available through Instacart.

To use the service, visit Instacart.com and enter your ZIP code. Complete the information to create an account. Order your items including meat, dairy, produce and personal care. At checkout, you enter your address and phone number and decide which delivery time you want.

Instacart is one of the many online grocery/delivery services cropping up. While the biggies — Amazon Fresh and Walmart-To-Go — are available on the West Coast, there are some other grocery delivery options in Atlanta:

Grab a Buggy costs $9.95 for standard delivery and has a $100 minimum for any order. The service is available in several counties, including Cobb, Paulding, Cherokee, Bartow and Forsyth.

ColdLife Organics will deliver fresh organic items for $4.95, and if you place your order by 8 p.m., you will get it the next day.

Instacart is staffed by “personal shoppers” who shop for and deliver grocery orders using their own transportation. O’Connor says they are well-trained on how to choose the best produce, since bad produce is one of the biggest complaints about grocery delivery services. Any issues with your order can be resolved through the customer happiness team, he says.

There is also a membership program called Instacart Express, which costs $99 annually and gives you free delivery on all orders over $35.