Bentonville entrepreneurs aim to disrupt multibillion-dollar grocery delivery market

Two Bentonville entrepreneurs have announced the pilot launch of a new mobile application that is designed to be a marketplace for the rapidly evolving grocery delivery market.

Robbie Larson and Alex Worley have been working for over a year on their mobile app, called PIKT.

“It’s essentially crowdsourced grocery delivery,” Larson explained. “PIKT is where Uber meets grocery delivery.”

Larson said PIKT is built to serve both the delivery and deliverer sides of the market. Users can choose between hiring someone to pick up their grocery pick-up order or signing up to pick up someone else’s order and deliver it themselves.

All deliveries cost a flat rate of $8, and there is no minimum cost for the size of the order. PIKT retains a 10% broker fee, and the remainder is passed on to the driver.

The mobile app launched in a pilot testing phase Oct. 1 and is leveraging existing click-and-collect services of retailers, which means PIKT deliverers will not have to physically shop for groceries or make payments for the groceries they are delivering.

The app had been downloaded about 100 times in the first month.

“[Drivers] will simply pick up the grocery orders that have been placed by someone else and provide delivery for that order,” Larson said.

PIKT is specifically focused on Walmart for the time being, Larson said. It initially included five Neighborhood Market locations in Northwest Arkansas — two each in Bentonville and Rogers and one in Fayetteville — but has recently expanded to additional Neighborhood Markets in the region, as well as a store in Provo, Utah. That’s where Larson completed his undergraduate degree at Brigham Young University.

PIKT can be found on the Apple app store.

“We’re very happy with the first month,” Larson said. “We’re testing the idea and looking for feedback. We want the market to help us form and shape this business.”

Larson and Worley, who’ve both worked as buyers for Sam’s Club in the past, now work for The Happy Egg Co., a multi-national, free-range egg brand owned by Noble Foods, the largest egg company in the United Kingdom. Happy Egg relocated its U.S. corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Rogers earlier this year.