A Deep Dive into Grocery Delivery by Rethink Retail

A Deep Dive into Grocery Delivery:

Owning vs Outsourcing the Customer Relationship

Table Of Contents 03.

Introduction

04.

The hidden cost of third-party dependency

05.

The relationship you're handing to someone else

06.

What owning the last mile actually looks like

07.

Beyond build vs. buy: own the customer, partner on the infrastructure

08.

What grocery operators should be asking right now

09.

Pressure-test your delivery strategy: A practical checklist

09.

The decision in front of you

Introduction The grocery operators losing customers right now are losing them to faster delivery, according to Brick Meets Click's Grocery Shopper Survey, which found ultra-fast delivery is actively eroding the need for quick trips to the physical store, pulling spending toward whichever retailer gets there first. Same-day delivery has become the baseline expectation in grocery. The gap between what consumers expect and what most mid-market operators can reliably deliver has never been wider. According to McKinsey's State of Grocery North America 2026, grocery retailers serving omnichannel shoppers capture 31% of those shoppers' total spend, compared to 26% for in-store-only shoppers. That five-point gap compounds over time into a structural revenue difference between operators who built for delivery and those who didn't. Same-day delivery now accounts for 80% of all grocery delivery orders, up from under 50% in 2022, according to Brick Meets Click's 2026 Grocery Shopper Survey. Delivery has displaced pickup as the dominant fulfillment model. McKinsey found that:

70% of consumers prefer delivery driven by:

67%

52%

45%

time savings

scheduling flexibility

ease for larger orders

The conventional wisdom in grocery is that same-day delivery and profitability are a trade-off. Tomáš Čupr, CEO of Rohlik Group, disagrees. "After a decade plus of optimization, we have an engine that achieves both," he says. "You can deliver an amazing customer proposition and make money. And that's new." That recognition, Tomáš Čupr explains, is what made the case for taking the capability beyond Rohlik's own markets. For most of the last decade, same-day grocery delivery was a capability that separated Amazon and Walmart from everyone else. That's no longer the competitive dynamic. It's now the baseline that every grocer, regardless of size, is being measured against. The question facing midmarket and enterprise operators is how to do it without handing the customer relationship to someone else in the process. One operator in Europe has already answered that question, and challenged the conventional trade-off entirely. Rohlik Group has spent more than a decade owning its delivery infrastructure rather than outsourcing it, and has reached sustained profitability in a category where most operators are still chasing it. It's not the only path, but it's one of the clearest proof points that the alternative to third-party dependency exists and scales commercially.

The hidden cost of third-party dependency

The overhead of running a branded delivery operation, including capital investment, maintenance, and union scheduling constraints, made owned delivery more expensive than third-party fees. "When you factor in all costs of operations on own delivery, this is actually cheaper," Roth notes.

For many grocery operators, the answer to the delivery question has been thirdparty platforms. EMARKETER notes that third-party intermediaries like Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats have become the default fulfillment partner for grocers who lack the infrastructure to run delivery themselves; Aldi, for instance, made Instacart its exclusive U.S. delivery partner in 2026 rather than building its own last-mile capability.

That calculation reflects Calgary Co-op's specific cost structure and operating model, and it doesn't generalize to every retailer.

The trade-off has felt manageable. In practice, commission structures on thirdparty delivery platforms typically run 15% to 30% per order, and the effective cost, once processing fees, promotions, and refunds are factored in, often climbs to 30-40% of revenue, according to Rezku's 2026 analysis of third-party delivery fees. For a category already operating on thin margins, that gap between the advertised rate and the real cost is structurally corrosive. According to EMARKETER’S 2026 last-mile delivery analysis, retailers evaluating thirdparty partnerships should factor in commission structures and data-sharing terms alongside the headline delivery fees. The true cost per order is consistently higher than the advertised rate once processing fees, promotional placements, and refunds are included. What operators expect to pay and what they actually pay is structurally corrosive. For Calgary Co-op, however, the economics told a different story.

For operators without those same constraints, the math can run the other way. At low online volume, outsourcing is typically cheaper, but above a certain scale and delivery density, the fixed cost per order collapses, and delivery can shift from a cost center to a genuine differentiator, the trajectory both Amazon and Rohlik eventually reached, though by different paths and over different timeframes. This cost fragmentation isn't unique to midmarket operators, but it's more visible in that segment simply because there's less margin to absorb it. The operators closing that gap fastest, according to EMARKETER, are the ones matching investment to a specific operational problem rather than adopting broadly and hoping efficiency follows.

The relationship you're handing to someone else The margin hit is the visible cost of third-party dependency. The relationship cost is the one that compounds over years. Every order processed through a platform generates a customer profile that belongs to the platform, not the grocer. Purchase history, basket composition, frequency, and preferences all flow to the intermediary. The grocer fulfills the order and absorbs the cost. The platform owns the relationship. Over time, that data asymmetry becomes a strategic liability. The platform knows the grocer's customers better than the grocer does and can use that intelligence to serve competitive offers and erode loyalty. As EMARKETER’S research shows, Walmart's retail media business generated $4.82 billion in 2025 and is forecast to grow into double digits through 2027. That business exists because Walmart owns its customer data. Grocers routing orders through third-party platforms are funding a version of that same capability for someone else. The brand implication is equally significant. When a shopper's experience with a grocer is mediated through a third-party app, the app owns the experience. The packaging, the communication, the service recovery when something goes wrong – all of it is filtered through a platform the grocer does not control. The customer associates the experience, good or bad, with the platform rather than the brand.

Linda Johansen-James, founder of International Retail Group, draws an evident distinction between where the risk actually sits. The highest cost of third-party dependency, she argues, is the slow transfer of the customer relationship. Customers don't distinguish between the retailer and the delivery partner. A late order, a poor substitution, or damaged goods gets remembered as a brand failure. A perfect delivery often gets credited to the platform. Over time, that erodes direct engagement, limits access to customer insight, and makes loyalty harder to build. "Customer experience is the brand," Johansen-James says. For Calgary Co-op, an experiential retailer built on member trust, the relationship cost of third-party delivery remains its biggest unresolved tension. Where the cooperative once delivered groceries directly into members' homes, that brand touchpoint now belongs to someone else.

The loudest customer is the one you don't hear from, because they just try you once and leave. Walter Roth, director of digital commerce and retail systems at Calgary Co-op

For mid-market grocers building a loyal customer base in competitive local markets, that isn’t a trade-off worth making indefinitely.

What owning the last mile actually looks like Owning the last mile isn’t a theoretical ambition. Some of the most standout examples of what it looks like in practice come from operators that made the infrastructure decision early and built around it deliberately. Rohlik Group has become one of the most closely watched case studies in digital grocery. Processing 80k orders per day across five markets with sustained profitability in a category where most operators are still chasing it, the Rohlik model is built around owning the full delivery experience rather than outsourcing it, with a delivery proposition of under 3 hours. That combination of sameday delivery at that speed, run profitably, distinguishes it from the slower or subsidized delivery models common elsewhere in the market. The commercial outcomes, including 65% of demand driven by same-day delivery and pick-to-dispatch times of around 12 minutes, are a direct consequence of infrastructure decisions made years before the results became visible. The operational model behind that capability has since been commercialized through Veloq, making it accessible to grocery operators beyond Rohlik's own markets.

Building that capability was not a straight line.

"To be profitable in same-day grocery, you have to do everything right, everything," says Čupr. "You can almost do 10 things right, not the last one, and everything breaks." What Rohlik built over more than a decade of operating across five markets, navigating different baskets, assortments, customer preferences, regulations, and labor conditions, is now embedded in Veloq. As Čupr puts it, "whoever comes after us basically gets all of the lessons for free." The lesson from operators like Rohlik is that the gap between where most mid-market operators are today and where the leading operators are is a function of decisions made deliberately and early. Customer data stays with the business. Loyalty is built through the brand, not through an intermediary. And the economics of delivery improve over time rather than eroding with every order.

Beyond build vs. buy: own the customer, partner on the infrastructure In practice, most grocery operators treat the last-mile question as build or outsource. As EMARKETER notes, major retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, and Target run proprietary delivery and pickup operations, while others partner with intermediaries like Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats when they lack that infrastructure. Yet the binary is blurring: Walmart and Aldi, both with strong in-house capability, have added third-party partnerships alongside their own, not out of necessity, but for reach. Aldi, for instance, made Instacart its exclusive U.S. delivery partner for its own site and app in 2026 rather than building its own last-mile capability, according to Supermarket News. Walmart has done the same, using third-party partners to extend delivery flexibility and reach beyond its own ecosystem, per Bringg's analysis. For both, third-party platforms are a customer acquisition layer on top of proprietary infrastructure, not a replacement, proof that the real question isn't which side of the binary to pick, but which parts of delivery are worth owning at all.

Grocery operators are increasingly choosing what to own and what to partner on, and consistently, the customer relationship is the piece worth protecting, with the infrastructure behind it open to partnership. Aldi keeps its branded app and website fully its own, while Instacart handles fulfillment as an exclusive partner. Calgary Co-op owns picking and the in-store experience, the moments it can control, while partnering on delivery. In both cases, the brand keeps the touchpoints that shape how customers remember it, without owning the full delivery chain. That's different from Rohlik's model, where picking, dispatch, and delivery all sit in-house. Neither approach is universally correct. What Aldi, Calgary Co-op, and Rohlik share is a deliberate decision about which parts of the relationship are non-negotiable to own, made early enough to shape the business around it, rather than defaulting into a fulfillment model by accident. That means investing in the systems, data, and experience layers that touch the customer directly, while leaning on proven technology partners for the automation, routing, and fulfillment infrastructure behind the scenes. It means moving repeat customers off third-party platforms and onto owned channels over time, even where thirdparty platforms remain part of the acquisition strategy. And it means treating delivery as a customer relationship problem with logistics implications.

Čupr is direct about what makes same-day delivery hard to retrofit. Most operators optimized for next-day delivery and have tried to bolt same-day on as consumer expectations shifted.

For most, this is an afterthought, (...) But this is a pure play same-day solution from a vendor that actually runs on it. For any grocer evaluating whether to build, buy, or partner their way to last-mile ownership, that difference matters. For grocers not yet ready to own the last mile fully, the priority is protecting what can be protected: customer data, brand experience, and loyalty. Third-party platforms can remain part of the model without becoming the whole of it. Using them strategically and depending on them structurally are two very different positions. Calgary Co-op's experience illustrates what that looks like in practice. Roth's answer has been to own the picking and the in-store experience while partnering on delivery. When a third-party picker selects four oranges, they take the first four they see. The grocer can't control the delivery moment, so it controls what happens before the picker arrives. "We can improve our services by making sure the product on the shelf is in the best condition," Roth explains, "because that's where we can control the customer experience."

What grocery operators should be asking right now The window to act is narrowing. As Amazon and Walmart continue to set the same-day delivery standard across North America, the cost of delay for mid-market operators is rising with every quarter. "How do you balance that?" Roth asks. "The white-glove treatment for those customers who want it and need it, and the speed for those customers who want it quickly, and sometimes they're the same customer." It is a question Calgary Co-op is actively working through, and one that Roth believes the industry has not yet answered well. Rohlik's model suggests one possible answer, though not necessarily one every operator can replicate. The tension Roth describes tends to surface when speed and care are split across different parties: the picker, the platform, and the driver. Rohlik's structure avoids that split by keeping each step inhouse, which may explain why its operational numbers look the way they do. The difference is less about strategy than about starting position: Roth's constraint is that Calgary Co-op controls the shelf but not what happens once a third-party picker takes over, while Rohlik built its business without that handoff at all. For Johansen-James, the strategic question mid-market grocers should be asking has nothing to do with build vs. buy. It’s simpler and more demanding than that: does every technology and delivery decision strengthen the customer relationship? The grocers that manage to move the needle in this space will be the ones that never lose ownership of the customer.

Pressure-test your delivery strategy: A practical checklist Last-mile readiness

Margin and cost visibility Do we know the true cost of every thirdparty order we fulfill, including commission, promotional fees, pricing adjustments, and refunds? Have we modeled what third-party dependency costs us over a three to five year horizon, not just per order?

What would it take to own the last mile for our highest-value customers, not necessarily all customers? What partners could help us get there without building everything from scratch? Have we explored what a hybrid delivery model could look like for our specific operation and customer base?

Customer ownership Who owns the customer relationship when a shopper orders through a third-party platform? What are we actively doing to bring those customers onto our own channels? What share of our repeat customers are ordering through third-party platforms, and what would it take to shift even a portion of that volume direct?

Data infrastructure Are we building the data infrastructure today that will allow us to personalize, retain, and grow our customer base over the next three to five years? Or are we outsourcing that capability to a platform?

The decision in front of you Same-day delivery is the baseline. The gap between operators who built for it early and those still weighing their options isn't closing on its own. Delivery, in the end, is a decision about who owns the customer. Rohlik made that call years before the results became visible. Aldi and Calgary Co-op made a narrower version of the same call, protecting what they could control and partnering on the rest. None of them treated fulfillment as an afterthought. That same decision, made deliberately or by default, sits in front of every mid-market grocer right now.