Instacart stock cuts prices as grocery delivery competition intensifies - Wells Fargo

Investing.com - Wells Fargo released findings from its second-quarter grocery delivery pricing survey showing the gap between third-party and first-party delivery costs remained stable after narrowing in the first quarter.

Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) is the only third-party delivery service to reduce both product prices and consumer fees since Wells Fargo began tracking in September 2025, resulting in the largest basket decline among third-party providers at 6% compared to DoorDash (NASDAQ: DASH) at 2% and Uber (NYSE: UBER) at 1%. DoorDash increased fees in the second quarter by 21% quarter-over-quarter while cutting product pricing by 4%, marking the third consecutive quarter of fee increases and making it the highest-fee provider.

Uber reduced fees by 40% since September 2025 with mild product price inflation of 3%, keeping total basket costs relatively flat. The data suggests first-party and third-party delivery use cases are not yet directly competitive, with each provider showing different dynamics.

Third-party grocery delivery total basket costs carried a 36% premium versus the average of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) in the second quarter, flat quarter-over-quarter after narrowing from approximately 42% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Amazon remains the lowest-cost provider at roughly 27% below the delivery average, though price increases over the past two quarters brought Walmart to a 14% premium in the second quarter of 2026, down from 18% in the first quarter and 21% in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Wells Fargo noted Amazon and Walmart pricing is driven primarily at the product level with delivery and service fees largely minimal.

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