A Philadelphia-based digital retail startup is bringing its industry-disrupting delivery concept to Des Moines. 

The company, goPuff, aims its delivery app squarely at millennials who would rather pick up their smartphone to order munchies rather than their car keys to drive to a convenience store. It will be interesting to see how the concept plays out in the backyard of Casey’s General Stores and Kum & Go. 

GoPuff was started five years ago by two Drexel University students — Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola — in Philadelphia. From that one market and an initial 50 products, they have expanded to more than 2,000 convenience items that drivers deliver from centrally located warehouses in more than 50 cities, among them Boston, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia and Seattle. 

The delivery service, which charges a flat $1.95 regardless of order size, spans categories ranging from snacks and beverages to groceries, personal care items and even pet supplies.  

This past summer, goPuff added Iowa City and Ames to its markets, and by the end of this year the company plans to launch its delivery service in Des Moines, initially serving 17 ZIP codes in the metro. 

“We have opened in a lot of college towns like Ames and Iowa City,” goPuff’s communications director, Liz Romaine, told me. Being in Iowa’s two biggest college towns has helped build awareness, she said. “It really made a lot of sense for us to open in the Des Moines area — we’ve had a lot of calls asking for us to move into that area sooner rather than later.” 

Romaine said goPuff plans to hire about 50 drivers initially for Des Moines, along with about a dozen people to pull orders at a central warehouse. The company is still firming up plans for 2019 openings, she said, so she couldn’t say whether goPuff plans to open in more Iowa markets.
The company doesn’t sell cigarettes, but it does sell beer, wine and spirits in some markets, among them Ames, Romaine said. It doesn’t plan to deliver alcoholic beverages in the Des Moines market, she said. 

Some of the top items ordered on goPuff in Iowa, by the way, are Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Mexican Coke, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Laffy Taffy.