Instacart is scaling its Connected Stores initiative to help grocers to combine in-store and online experiences by expanding its top feature, Caper Carts, an AI-powered smart cart, in the US and internationally. The carts are equipped with scales and sensors that enable self-checkout.
Instacart announced its first overseas initiative with Caper Carts in Austria as part of its existing partnership with German supermarket chain Aldi.
- Caper Carts have been deployed across North America at retailers including Bristol Farms, Fairway Market, Geissler’s, Kroger, McKeever’s Market & Eatery, Price Chopper, Schnucks, ShopRite, and Sobeys, according to Instacart.
David McIntosh, VP and GM of Connected Stores at Instacart, told Retail Brew that Schnucks customers using Caper Carts are purchasing more items: On peak days, Caper Carts have processed more than 10% of in-store sales at a Schnucks store, which means that more than 10% of dollars spent in the store were flowing through Caper Carts. He also said Instacart plans to have thousands of Caper Carts deployed worldwide by the end of 2024.
Retail Brew caught up with McIntosh to talk about Caper Carts in Europe.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What made Instacart pick Europe for its global expansion of Caper Carts?
As we started hearing from more and more retailers internationally, they had many of the same pain points of needs as retailers in the US. They were looking to digitize more customers in the store, and increase basket [sizes.] They wanted to drive more omnichannel engagement with customers. They were also interested in the ads opportunity on the cards. And Europe has a very robust ads market on balance compared to the US.
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What is the ad revenue opportunity that Caper Carts present?
What’s exciting for CPGs is the ability—one to tap into an engaged customer when they’re in front of the screen as they’re shopping in the store and making decisions on what to put in their cart based on what’s on that screen. Second, CPGs are excited to really take the measurability of online into the store. CPGs love the measurability and the personalization of Instacart’s online ads offering and with Caper [Carts], we’re really connecting the two together and bringing it into the store. Third, CPGs are excited about the fact that they can tap into new ways of making the advertising even more compelling to customers, in terms of leveraging not just what’s in your cart, not just what’s on your shopping list, but where you are actually in the store, to make these really relevant to consumers.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered as you expand the rollout of these smart carts?
I think what we’ve seen is that aligning incentives is really key to this business. The fact that retailers are seeing significant basket size increases, the fact that they’re seeing significant promise around ads. The fact that, for example, this seems like a small thing, but the carts actually support collapsible charging. Earlier associates would have to plug-in each cart individually, that becomes more workforce, more associates in the store, and that starts to misalign incentives. The easier we make it for retailers to adopt, manage, and put these things in the store, the more data points they’re seeing in the market around these benefits, the more that aligns incentives around adoption.