Brief:

• Yelp, the customer review app that this month sold Eat24 to food-delivery service GrubHub for $288 million, partnered with Curbside to help people shop in the Yelp app and pick up items locally, a blog post said.

• Yelp users can browse for products and order them from a participating local business, then drive to pick up their order without getting out of the car. Curbside’s geo-location technology alerts store staff when a customer arrives for pick-up.

• CVS, the pharmacy chain with 9,600 retail pharmacies, invested in Curbside last year and now provides pickup at 4,000 stores. The “CVS Express” feature in the CVS app allows customers to shop from about 10,000 products.

Insight:

Curbside’s service is one way for brick-and-mortar retailers to fight back competition from Amazon, which offers same-day delivery in some markets. CVS has been rolling out Curbside service since last year, and the partnership with Yelp means that the service will be available at more retailers.

While Yelp offers the pickup feature, it’s Curbside that provides the service to its customers, working through partnerships with CVS, Sephora and Westfield among others. Because Curbside requires an inventory feed, the service works better for restaurants with fixed menus and larger retailers.

The pickup option is also available for Curbside customer Pizza Hut, which is testing the service in the San Francisco area. Curbside is working with other restaurant chains that will add pickups to Yelp in the months ahead. For Curbside, Yelp lets businesses reach customers on a larger platform, some of whom may not have the business’s app installed.