Startups Race To Deliver On-Demand Thanksgiving Essentials

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In-store retailers spend the better part of early November saturating the airwaves with news of their irresistible promotions come Black Friday in order to get shoppers up from the dinner tables and in line for doorbuster deals. However, this year food and beverage delivery startups are doing whatever it takes to keep customers at home and stocked with on-demand turkey and booze.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Chris Vaughn, CEO of alcohol delivery startup Saucey, explained that Thanksgiving produces a healthy serving of orders from customers running out of Turkey Day essentials like wine and beer. With most liquor stores only open in the early morning hours, startups like Saucey are sometimes the only options for diners who find themselves staring at the bottom of an empty bottle of Sauv.

“As you might imagine, we get a lot of wine orders on Thanksgiving,” Vaughn told The WSJ. “If you realize you’re running out of wine, it’s certainly better to make an order on your smartphone.”

Instacart has also partnered with Whole Foods and Safeway to facilitate delivery of on-demand turkey, stuffing and other Thanksgiving essentials to customers in 20 cities across the U.S. until 2 pm on Thursday. Not to be outdone, Amazon is also putting its network of Flex contract drivers to work for on-demand deliveries.

What does this mean for the workers who actually have to take time away from their holidays to ferry food and wine to customers’ homes? On Thanksgiving, the answer is higher pay. Vazgen Aroutiounian, a Los Angeles-area courier for Saucey, told The WSJ that he decided to work a 6-hour shift on Thanksgiving because of the potential for a big payday. Saucey is paying its drivers $15 an hour plus $2 for every delivery they make.

If customers show as much of an appetite for on-demand deliveries this Thanksgiving as they do for the food they eat, it could be a lucrative day for Aroutiounian and others.