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If grocery shopping is your cardio, then Instacart has news for you.
Instacart’s Caper Carts available at supermarkets like Schnucks and ShopRite have undergone something of a makeover. The AI-powered smart carts equipped with a tablet-like screen and sensors will now offer shoppers location-based coupons to alert them to nearby deals and discounts for relevant items, as they shop each aisle of the store.
The company is also introducing mini-game-like “gamified quests” to Capers to enable shoppers to earn rewards and credits that can potentially save them money.
David McIntosh, VP and GM of Connected Stores at Instacart, told Retail Brew that in-store marketing today is like “a cardboard box with items on it.”
With Caper Carts, McIntosh said, the idea is to customize the grocery shopping experience.
“The beauty of the screen is it’s dynamic,” he said. “You can display a different thing to everybody. You don't have to set up—and put things on the cardboard box.”
“Second, you can reach somebody intra-trip. You can reach them based on where they are in the store. You can reach them based on what’s in their cart,” he explained.
On the ads side, Instacart is also launching location-based ads on Caper Carts. The company said, over a dozen brands are piloting location-based ad formats at Schnucks, spotlighting products on Caper Carts’ digital screens based on where customers are in the store.
“Because you have a screen in front of a customer, as they’re shopping, the deals can become far more personalized,” McIntosh said.
“The power of this technology is it’s unlocking more value for everybody in the ecosystem,” he added. “Consumers get more deals. CPGs get to reach consumers in new ways. Retailers get incremental streams of revenue.”
Monetizing your shopping streak: The way Instacart makes money from this is it gets a share of the additional income retailers make through Caper Carts. Instacart earned $871 million in revenue from ads last year, up 18% YoY.
“Retailers are seeing Caper as a way to drive new revenue,” McIntosh said. “It increases their sales from the basket increases, and then, with the location-based ads, it’s a new source of high-margin revenue for them.”
Over the last six months, Instacart has more than tripled its Caper Cart footprint, McIntosh said.
“Through the magic of the screen, through the personalization, we can make shopping more fun, more adventurous,” he added.