According to Bloomberg Business, Instacart (Maplebear Inc.) will use its white-label technology to power Costco’s online grocery ordering and same-day delivery in Spain and France, marking their first partnership expansion beyond North America. Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said they chose these markets for their dense urban environments and established retail footprints. The company’s enterprise offerings, including advertising, already make up nearly 30% of its revenue. To comply with local labor laws, Instacart will work with unnamed third-party European companies for order fulfillment, a departure from its U.S. contractor model. Shares of Instacart jumped as much as 2.9% on the news, while Costco’s stock fell 2%.
Instacart’s Real Strategy
Here’s the thing: this isn’t really about Instacart launching its familiar green-app service in Europe. It’s about selling the plumbing. The company is explicitly avoiding the costly, brand-heavy fight of introducing a consumer-facing app in new territories. Instead, it’s renting out the entire backend engine it built over a decade in the brutal U.S. grocery wars. Rogers said it himself: they’re extending “capabilities that we’ve already proven at scale.” That’s a much higher-margin, lower-risk game. They get to be the behind-the-scenes operating system for grocery e-commerce, collecting tech fees and ad revenue without the nightmare of directly managing a gig workforce under Europe’s stricter employment laws. Smart.
Costco’s Digital Catch-Up
For Costco, this is a necessary move. The warehouse giant is legendary for its in-store experience, but its digital offerings have historically lagged. They’ve been playing catch-up, partnering with everyone from Uber to DoorDash. This Instacart deal, however, seems more foundational. It’s not just another delivery option; it’s powering their entire e-commerce site in those countries. That suggests Costco wants a cohesive, branded online experience, not just a patchwork of delivery APIs. The long-term bet is clear: digital sales will grow faster than the overall business. But there’s a catch mentioned in the report—younger, digital-first members renew at lower rates. So the calculus is about acquiring them now and figuring out loyalty later.
The Global Grocery Tech Race
So who loses if this model works? Local European delivery startups, for one. Instacart isn’t coming to compete with them on the street; it’s coming to sell their own retailers a turnkey system that might make those local services redundant. It’s a B2B land grab. And Instacart is already doing this elsewhere—with smart carts in Australia and the UK, and pilot talks in Austria. This is a full-blown enterprise pivot. The competitive landscape isn’t just other gig apps anymore; it’s any company selling e-commerce SaaS solutions to massive retailers. Instacart’s edge is that it comes with deep, hard-won grocery logistics DNA. Basically, they’ve already fought the war in the trenches of perishable delivery. Now they’re licensing the blueprints.
The Big Picture
Look, this is a classic case of a maturing company finding a smarter path to growth. The consumer delivery app game is a brutal, subsidy-fueled marathon with tiny margins. The enterprise tech game? That’s where the real software margins live. By using Costco as an anchor tenant in Europe, Instacart gets instant credibility and scale without the customer acquisition cost. It’s a brilliant wedge. The question is whether other global giants will buy the argument that U.S.-honed grocery tech is the right solution for European markets with different shopping habits, labor rules, and retail landscapes. If they do, Instacart’s quiet backend business might just become its most important story.
