On a warm, sunny day in late April, Kimberly Carrizoza steps out of her car in the parking lot of the North Shore Publix supermarket on Market Street. As she approaches the store, automatic doors open and she heads directly to the bank of shopping carts. She then fastens her smart phone to the handle of her cart, opens up the Shipt application and is ready for work.
Carrizoza wears bright white hightop Converse sneakers, dark blue jeans and a gray T-shirt with the Shipt logo. She's a mother of three and has been a stay-at-home mom for a decade. Since December, she has been buying and delivering groceries for customers in the Chattanooga area full time, seven days a week.
"Since I've started this job, we've doubled our family's income," Carrizoza says.
The wheels on the shopping cart spin. She taps away at her phone, pulling boxes of granola down from the shelf, checking items off her virtual list. A gallon of milk, yogurt and breakfast bars are all placed in the cart.
While Carrizoza shops, a mom in Hixson waters her plants in the front yard, her grocery shopping in another's hands.
Shipt is a grocery service app that connects delivery drivers with shoppers. The idea is simple: A person in need of groceries gets out their smartphone, opens up the Shipt app, selects from thousands of items in their local Publix grocery store and hits purchase. That information goes to a driver who does the actual shopping and delivers the groceries to the home of the Shipt customer. To use the service, Shipt offers a subscription of $14 a month or $99 for a full year. All orders over $35 come with free delivery and there is no limit to how often you can order. The shoppers, hired after multiple interview sessions and background checks, are paid an average of $15 to $20 per order.
"At the core of our business is the mission to simplify the lives of our customers," Shipt founder and CEO Bill Smith says. "After our launch in Nashville earlier this year, we heard from many Chattanooga residents who would greatly benefit from the convenience of on-demand grocery delivery."
The Birmingham, Alabama-based company is the latest of many on-demand services that have taken advantage of the Chattanooga's digital culture. Companies such as Uber, Lyft, OrderUp, Favor and Postmates are all delivery-based services that make life easier for people like the mother stranded without formula, the executive held up in evening meetings without dinner or the barbecue host who forgot the beer. The industry is built on convenience and efficiency. And in a tech-savvy city like Chattanooga, it seemed like an ideal fit.
"Chattanooga has a booming tech industry and people there seem to have adapted to the culture," says Anne Adams, Shipt's community relations manager. "The community has a great combination of innovation and a demand for the service."
Although Shipt does not have an official affiliation with any one supermarket chain, the app solely deals with Publix in Chattanooga. Adams couldn't disclose the actual numbers that show the app's growth in the Chattanooga area, but she says she is optimistic about the company's stability.
"We're growing every month," she said. "There are new shoppers and drivers signing up every month and our developers and creative engineers on that side of it are constantly adapting to the high demand."
Carrizoza rounds up her 11-item order, a relatively small one compared to most, and gets in line at the checkout. She says hello to familiar faces, co-workers if you will. A cashier named Hillary tells Carrizoza that her daughter was just hired as a shopper. She'll be a senior in college and figured making a few bucks for the summer wouldn't hurt.
"I see new faces all the time," Carrizoza says on the way to the Hixson house. "It's growing. People are catching on and it makes total sense. Anyone can do this job. You have to be organized and efficient with your time. It's easy."
The luxury of creating your own schedule is the main lure of a job like this. Whether a shopper does it as a side gig a few days a week, an hour here or there or does it full-time like Carrizoza, the freedom is key.
"I told myself that I would never get a job where they have to tell me when to be there and how long I'll have to be there," says Carrizoza. "I can't do that with the kids. And being a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, I'm accustomed to doing things when I need to do them. With this job, I can work sunup to sundown whenever I want and I can take a week off without having to ask anyone."
As she started to work more, the excitement started to kick in. Not only is her free membership a card she plays often (every shopper gets one), but shopping and delivering has been simply irresistible. Working has become an addiction.
"I started doing this three days a week, now I work seven," she says. "I use the membership that they give us all the time because the last thing I want to do when I'm shopping for everyone else is shop for myself."
The night before, around 7 p.m., she realized she didn't have anything for the kids' lunch. So she got on Shipt, put in a small order of deli meat, and a half hour later, there it was. "Shipt to the rescue," she says. Another interesting aspect of the service is the fact that there is no room for "impulse buys," an epidemic all grocery shoppers are too familiar with. Whether you go to the store hungry to begin with or have a weakness for the ice cream section, enticing snacks are constantly at your fingertips.
"Going shopping before, especially with my kids, I would leave with a million other things that I didn't need," says Carrizoza. "Shipt is great because you have a set list of what you need and then you forget about it. You're not walking down the cookie aisle or anything. In the long run you can end up saving money by avoiding impulse buys."
Carrizoza pulls into the driveway of Stacy Moloney's house, a middle-age, stay-at-home mom. This is her first Shipt order. When asked what her favorite part of the service is, she beams and points at the groceries in Carrizoza's hands.
"She came right to me," she says. "What's not to love?"
"My favorite part of the job is how happy people are to see me," says Carrizoza. "You're constantly, all day long, told how wonderful you are. You just saved them an hour or two from their day. It's funny how excited people get not to shop."
The connection and convenience is what Shipt prides itself on. It's a formula that works well because of the communal interactions that it creates.
"This day and age, people expect to talk to a machine and our customers are pleasantly surprised that they can have this amazing, virtual experience with a personal experience as well," says Adams. "You have a shopper at the store shopping for you just as you would, taking the time to look at the special requests, taking note at things you specified and delivering it to your door with a smile. That's what we find is special and valuable."
Moloney continues to water her flowers as Carrizoza walks the bags all the way up to the kitchen counter. She bids farewell and get back into her car. Pulling out of the driveway, her phone dings. Another order. Shipt to the rescue.