Select Food Delivery Services Are Changing Their Policies Because Of Coronavirus

Recently, many companies have begun conducting all business remotely as a way to prevent the spread of coronavirus. That means many — possibly including you — are working from home. You may think that being confined to your apartment is the perfect time to use the genius technology that is food and grocery delivery apps, however, having items delivered to your home still means having to come into contact with at least one other human being. Or does it? It turns out a few delivery services thought ahead and are now offering zero-contact delivery.

Last week, Postmates announced it was introducing Dropoff Options, which allows customers to specify how they want to receive deliveries. You can meet the delivery at the door, at the curbside, or choose “non-contact.” Non-contact deliveries will simply be left at your door. In its announcement of the new Dropoff Options, Postmates wrote, “We know there are always people who, for health and other reasons, might prefer a non-contact delivery experience and we believe this will provide customers with that option.”

Taking advantage of the new Dropoff Options is easy. Place your order on the Postmates app the same way you’ve always done, and before checking out, you’ll be prompted to select your delivery preference.

Postmates isn’t the only delivery service that recently added new delivery options. Instacart announced “Leave at My Door Delivery” late last week. According to the company, it has been testing “Leave at My Door Delivery” with select customer groups across the U.S. and Canada for the past few months. Though the new feature wasn’t created in direct response to COVID-19, Instacart explained that it did notice a significant surge in the number of consumers using the feature over the last week. This prompted a roll-out to all Instacart customers.

Like with Postmates, you can choose the “Leave at My Door Delivery” option when you checkout on the Instacart app. You’ll receive a real-time photo alert when your groceries are at your doorstep, so you can grab them ASAP.

That WFH life just got taken to a whole new level.

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