Why Smart Carts Are the Winning Technology Format for Grocers

One of the most common misconceptions about smart carts is that they only serve as an alternative to self-checkout. However, the real magic behind a Caper Cart, our AI-powered smart cart, is the digital screen.

Customers tell us shopping with a Caper Cart feels like an adventure. They love the ability to keep an eye on their running total, instantly access coupons and loyalty programs, “spin the wheel” for a chance to win discounts and shop independently. 

Caper Carts at ramped locations have a net promoter score of more than 70, which is already in line with some of the world’s most beloved brands. Caper Carts are used by people of all ages and are especially popular among couples and families. Kids pull their parents over to start using the cart, and often insist on scanning all the items themselves. In some stores, customers are waiting 5 minutes until a Caper Cart becomes available – and for them, saving time in a checkout line is a distant secondary benefit to the value of the screen.

As you’ll see directly from our CEO, Fidji Simo, Caper Carts are not just practical, but fun for the whole family:

When Caper’s founders set out to understand how technology could modernize the grocery industry, they spoke with more than 150 store owners and managers across New York to understand their pain points. From those conversations, they realized retailer adoption hinged on prioritizing a fast return on investment, not over-engineering technology, and delivering a plug-and-play and modular solution.

Since acquiring Caper 2.5 years ago, we’ve been working closely with our more than 1,500 retail partners to understand how Caper Carts can seamlessly plug into their operations. Across major metro and suburban markets in North America, retailers including Bristol Farms, Fairway Market, Geissler’s, Schnucks, and ShopRite are introducing Caper Carts. Most notably, Geissler’s will be replacing the majority of nearly all of its traditional shopping carts with Caper Carts.

And by the end of 2024, we expect to deploy thousands of Caper Carts across North America. 

As retailers continue to introduce more Caper Carts in response to positive customer feedback and adoption, we’re focusing on three key capabilities – gamification, personalization, and advertising: 

Gamification

Customers tell us shopping with a Caper Cart feels like an adventure – they love the cart’s lights and sounds, which is especially appealing to families shopping. Today, customers can spin Caper Carts’ gamified coupon wheel for a chance to win discounts and dollars off right before checkout. 

We’ll continue to build out gamification experiences on the cart – transforming the shopping experience from a chore into an adventure. 

Personalization

By syncing Caper Carts with the Instacart App or retailers’ Storefront Pro-powered apps, customers can seamlessly import their shopping and “Buy It Again” lists directly to the cart – which automatically checks off items as they’re added.

In the future, we can recommend relevant recipes and products in real-time based on purchase history, where you are in store or what’s in your cart. For example, when a customer adds a can of refried beans to their cart, we’ll be able to surface a coupon for shredded cheese as they stroll through the dairy aisle.

Ads

On average, customers spend more than 30 minutes shopping in-store with a Caper Cart, and are highly engaged with the screen as they decide what to drop in or remove. We recently introduced advertising on Caper Carts, bringing the power of personalization and measurability online into the store, while offering customers more targeted, personalized recommendations right at their fingertips.

This gives CPGs, such as Del Monte Foods, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, and General Mills, the opportunity to influence a consumer’s purchasing decisions in real-time in the store just as effectively as they already do on the Instacart App. And it’s great for the customer experience, introducing customers to new brands and savings in real-time as they shop.

As we continue to expand in-store advertising opportunities, we’ll help brands take advantage of a Caper Cart’s digital screen and omnichannel understanding of customers, while unlocking a new revenue stream for retailers. 

For the last 12 years, we’ve transformed online grocery shopping to make it more personalized, convenient, and affordable. Now, we’re bringing that same innovation into the physical aisles of the store with Caper Carts. Our ambition is to transform shopping from a chore to an adventure, creating a new way for customers to shop the aisles of their favorite retail stores.

This blog post contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including without limitation statements regarding our expectations for the deployment of Caper Carts and expansion of existing features and capabilities.These forward-looking are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause actual results or outcomes to be materially different from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including those described from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update these forward-looking statements.

David McIntosh

Author

David McIntosh is VP of Connected Stores at Instacart. His team delivers solutions that enable retailers to offer seamless retail experiences across online and in-store, benefitting retailers and their customers. Previously, in his role as VP of Product, Retailer, he led the development of Instacart Platform. Prior to joining Instacart in 2021, David was the CEO and co-founder of Tenor, a leading expression search engine which Google acquired in 2018. At Google, David grew Tenor to over 1 Billion users and more than 1 Billion queries per day.