Lockdown or not, we have to eat. With most restaurants in the US shut down or working in a very limited capacity, more dinners are being made and not bought.
To stay away from grocery stores, many are shifting towards having gig-workers pick up groceries for them. Instacart, a company that connects shoppers with customers, has seen so much growth over the last few weeks that it's now getting more downloads than Amazon in the US App Store:
Less gig-economy style services FreshDirect and PeaPod are also seeing an increase in downloads, but not nearly at the scale of Instacart because they operate in fewer markets around the country, and it shows:
PeaPod's 10x growth is certainly substantial. FreshDirect's 10x growth is also impressive as the service with the least geographical coverage.
7-Eleven's app crossed one million downloads in the first three weeks of April after T-Mobile Tuesdays promoted a free monthly perk at 7-Eleven and Speedway.
When gas prices rose in March, GasBuddy surged again. The spike shows how big this category gets when real-world pressure hits.