Helping retailers deliver a great experience both online and in-store is one of our most important jobs. That means building tools that connect those experiences and enabling all of our partners to grow and better serve customers, however they choose to shop. Today, we offer a robust suite of in-store solutions, including:
- FoodStorm – order management technology for prepared foods
- Carrot Tags – electronic shelf label software that increases found rates
- In-Store Mode – digital shopping companion for the Instacart App and retailers’ apps
- Store View scanning technology – AI and Arpalus-powered computer vision that analyzes videos captured by ~600,000 Instacart shoppers, giving partners a real-time view of the shelf
- Inventory Intelligence – software that provides stores with real-time shelf visibility, merchandising optimization, and demand forecasting
- Store Excellence Portal – software that gives CPG brands a daily store-level view of what’s on the shelf
As we plan the next phase of our in-store strategy, we’ve made the strategic decision to wind down our Caper Cart business and focus our time and resources on areas where we believe we can scale and deliver the greatest impact for our retail and brand partners, in addition to their customers.
Over the past several months, we’ve been evaluating Caper’s progress and the investment required to scale the business. Retailers and brands today are balancing a number of competing priorities, and we’re seeing them prioritize investments in solutions that can modernize stores at scale. While Caper is a great product, the business reality is that retailer adoption has not scaled quickly enough to justify our continued investment.
To be clear, in-store remains an integral part of the operating system we’re building for grocery: a single system that seamlessly powers both online and physical stores, giving retailers and brands the information and control they need to run their business.
As we look ahead and work closely with retail and brand partners, the next phase of our in-store strategy will be focused on intelligence and software. We believe our strengths in software, data, and AI give us a greater opportunity to help retailers and brands understand what’s actually happening on store shelves and take action on that information.
Whether it’s helping a retailer anticipate what customers need or keeping shelves stocked with the products they love, we believe these in-store technologies can scale and deliver the greatest impact for partners and their customers. This is our integrated platform at work: we take intelligence generated at an enormous scale across our platform and put it directly into our partners’ hands.
Most recently, we announced new in-store software solutions that give grocers and CPG brands a live view of stores, so shelves stay stocked, and customers can find what they need.
We’re so proud of what the Caper team built: a truly innovative smart cart that customers genuinely love. The experience taught us a lot about building technology for the complexities of physical stores, and we’ll carry those lessons forward. The opportunity in physical grocery is enormous, and we’re just getting started.
