By Jody Godoy
Oct 29 (Reuters) - Food delivery giant DoorDash's $17 billion acquisition of Instacart is likely to face scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which has focused on affordability as the cost of living remains a persistent source of pain for US consumers and a theme of the Trump administration.
The FTC, which traditionally handles the review of retail and grocery-related mergers, has been homing in on pocketbook issues and has a track record of scrutinizing delivery apps' business
practices. The agency has an ongoing case against Uber over subscription practices, and is considering a rule to prohibit food delivery services from charging surprise fees.
Last year, the FTC said it was looking into Instacart's practice of running price experiments that a study found resulted in some shoppers paying more than others for the same items ordered from the same store at the same time. Instacart ended the practice following criticism after the study by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative, an economic think tank.
US regulators have also taken several actions they said would help make consumer foods like meat and eggs more affordable as Americans grapple with the rising cost of living.
Regulatory hurdles are the biggest wildcard for the DoorDash-Instacart deal, which would give DoorDash a shortcut into the grocery business it has long tried to build, said Zak Stambor, retail and ecommerce analyst at Emarketer.
"There is meaningful overlap between the companies, especially in grocery delivery, so a deal would almost certainly draw antitrust scrutiny," he said.
Still, DoorDash is not a new face in Washington. It supported President Donald Trump's plan to exempt taxes on tips, and delivered food to the White House earlier this year to highlight how the policy had saved its drivers money.
INSTACART V DOORDASH V UBER EATS
Among standalone delivery apps, Instacart competes with DoorDash and Uber Eats, which have both expanded into grocery. The apps dispatch drivers to shop directly at stores including Kroger and Albertsons.
Instacart last year announced a partnership with Grubhub, another food delivery app owned by privately held Wonder Group, to deliver groceries.
DoorDash has touted its lead on grocery and retail, saying in February that it had more of those orders in 2025 than other food delivery apps. The company cited analysis by YipitData, a firm that analyzes credit card data, email receipts and other sources to gauge transactions.
Regulators will likely compare data on competitors as part of any review. Last year, DoorDash had 65.1% of all orders, including retail, grocery and restaurant delivery, according to statistics YipitData provided to Reuters. Uber Eats had 25.8% and Instacart 9.1% of orders, according to YipitData's analysis of more than 3 million consumers' email receipts.
But DoorDash could argue it also competes with Walmart, Amazon.com and Target, and smaller operator Gopuff, all of which offer same-day delivery on groceries from their own stores and warehouses.
The combined companies would share an enormous amount of data on Americans' shopping habits. Groundwork Collaborative President Lindsay Owens criticized DoorDash's proposed acquisition of Instacart, saying it "would be obviously illegal and consolidate an alarming amount of surveillance and pricing technology in one company.”
Gathering and analyzing shoppers' data to inform pricing and advertising strategies has become a lucrative line of business for many companies.
The FTC on Wednesday launched a study of whether and how companies including DoorDash and Instacart use individual shoppers' data to set prices and wages for drivers.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; editing by Chris Sanders and Nick Zieminski)
