‘Hey, BeerVan!’: Giant Eagle kicks off beer delivery service

Giant Eagle is taking aim at convenience-driven customers with the launch of beer delivery service BeerVan.com and pilots of mobile ordering, pickup and delivery of food and beverages at its GetGo fuel/convenience stores, including via Uber Eats.

All three services got under way this month. BeerVan.com, currently operating from Giant Eagle’s Market District store in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood, enables shoppers to order beer online for home delivery within a two-hour window. So far, the service delivers to six ZIP codes in the Pittsburgh area.

At BeerVan.com, customers can choose from more than 150 domestic, craft and imported beers. Giant Eagle noted that beer prices through the online service are the same as those in-store. Delivery costs $4.99. There’s no minimum order, but shoppers are limited to a maximum purchase of 192 ounces in a single transaction.

Customers placing orders and accepting deliveries through BeerVan.com must be age 21 or older and present valid identification at the time of delivery. Giant Eagle said that if no one answers the door when a delivery is made, the driver will contact the customer using the phone number provided in the order. Beer delivery is available Wednesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and payment currently is accepted only through PayPal.

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“We’ve created BeerVan as a complement to the variety of convenience solutions we already have in place for our time-starved customers,” Giant Eagle spokeswoman Jannah Jablonowski said in a statement. “We’re excited to give our customers the ability to check one more thing off their to-do list, without ever having to leave home.”

Meanwhile, Giant Eagle said the mobile ordering pilots at a pair of GetGo convenience stores in Ohio target two “pain points” for food and beverage customers at c-stores: the time spent waiting for their order to be prepared, and the time spent waiting in line to pay.

GetGo mobile ordering and pickup, accessed through the Giant Eagle mobile app, is now offered at the retail banner’s Grandview Yard store in Columbus and its Dublin location. Customers can order items from the entire GetGo café menu, ranging from made-to-order subs, burgers and salads to hot and cold drinks.

After adding items to their mobile cart, shoppers designate a pickup location and time and pay for their order, which then is queued to be prepared and placed in a pickup area at the selected store.

GetGo’s Grandview Yard store also is the site of the pilot with Uber Eats, an online and mobile food ordering and delivery service. As with GetGo mobile ordering, customers near the 24-hour store who place orders for delivery via Uber Eats can choose from the entire GetGo café menu and have their items delivered any time, day or night.

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According to Giant Eagle, mobile services will grow in importance as businesses like GetGo position themselves in the quick-serve and fast-casual restaurant market segments.

“We strongly believe that mobile ordering and delivery will be a key way we engage with customers who are hyper-focused on convenience, but the experience must be seamless,” said spokesman Dan Donovan. “After reviewing mobile ordering trends, we knew that both mobile payment and a true no-wait, in-store experience were critical for our mobile ordering offering to gain customer acceptance, which is why we incorporated these features when others in our industry did not.”

Overall, Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle operates 474 stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland and Indiana. That includes 216 grocery stores under the Giant Eagle, Market District, Market District Express and Giant Eagle Express banners plus 258 convenience/fuel locations under the GetGo and Ricker’s banners.