Lucky Stores Plans to Offer Home-Delivered Groceries

In a novel move for a major Southland grocery chain, Lucky Stores Inc. said Monday that it will start a home-delivery service by the end of the year.

Lucky has teamed up with a Maryland company, Shoppers Express, that specializes in the grocery delivery business and plans to offer the phone-in service in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties and in the Las Vegas area.

Shoppers Express already supplies a similar service for major supermarket chains in several other major cities, including Washington and New York.

“It helps to extend the overall Lucky service to all customers and provide one more aspect to the time efficiency in our stores,” said Lucky spokeswoman Meredith Anderson.

While the phone-in service may be of value to the elderly and others who may have difficulty getting to the store, “the primary advantage is for the customer who doesn’t have time to do supermarket shopping,” she explained.

The service, however, is not likely to come cheap. While the price is yet to be determined for Southern California, Shoppers Express typically charges $10 to $15 a trip in the other cities where it operates. There is no minimum purchase requirement, said Kara Kernan, director of marketing for Shoppers Express.

“You can order a pack of gum or the whole store” for the single delivery charge, she said.

The home-delivery service is unique because Lucky’s will be the only large Southern California supermarket chain to offer it. Some independent, upscale markets, such as the Irvine Ranch Market in West Los Angeles, have offered a delivery service for years.

Shoppers Express will act as a go-between in the transaction. Shoppers will dial a toll-free number that is answered at the company’s Bethesda, Md., offices. The person who answers the call then determines the Lucky store closest to the shopper based on their ZIP code, and sends an order form to the store via fax machine.

A Lucky clerk will select the grocery items off the shelves, package them and send them to the customer using a contract delivery service. Kernan said the delivery times are yet to be determined, but it could be a tricky task given Southern California’s traffic.

Payment is collected upon delivery. She said orders are fully guaranteed, with shoppers being able to have any mistakes returned for a refund. She said the company is negotiating with delivery companies to provide the service.

Kernan said experience in other cities has shown that there are enough customers--even in a huge area--to make the service profitable. “In most of the stores we work with, the volume is enough that the program runs itself,” she said.