Dive Brief:
- Gopuff has started offering college students access to all of the benefits of its Fam subscription service at a 50% discount, the quick commerce company announced Monday.
- The new membership program, known as Student Fam, costs $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year and is available to students on more than 1,000 college campuses in the U.S.
- Gopuff’s addition of the program is the latest in a series of steps to revitalize its business as demand for rapid delivery services has come under pressure after booming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dive Insight:
Like Gopuff’s standard Fam offering, the new Student Fam program provides customers with an array of benefits, including unlimited free deliveries and an average savings of 30% off essential goods like eggs, laundry detergent and milk.
The program also offers members limited-time discounts of over 40% on “trendy, new brands,” Gopuff said in the announcement.
Student Fam members also can take advantage of features Gopuff added to the Fam program last month, such as 10% off all private label products. Gopuff noted that water carrying its Basically house brand is among the items that are most popular with its student customers.
Underscoring the importance of Gopuff to shoppers who participate in Fam, the company said that members in the program account for almost half of its orders. Members save an average of $20 per month, according to the company.
Last fall, Gopuff raised the standard cost of a Fam membership for the first time since the program began in 2018, boosting it from $5.95 to $7.99 per month.
Founded in 2013 by a pair of students at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Gopuff rode a wave of demand for its 30-minute delivery service and saw investors push its valuation to $15 billion in 2021. But the company has run into headwinds as demand for its services has weakened and funding has dried up.
In March, Gopuff let 2% of its staff go in the third round of layoffs it has seen since early 2022, although the company said the latest job cuts were an effort to cull underperforming staff, not reduce costs.
