Instacart has added two additional technology features to its platform, Store View and Second Store Check, which are made possible due to integrations with retailers’ inventory systems and millions of weekly orders placed across more than 100,000 locations.
“Keeping track of inventory is one of the biggest challenges in grocery. A single store carries more than 30,000 products, and even retailers don’t always have an accurate view of what’s on their shelves,” the company said in a statement.
“A study by the ECR Retail Loss Group found that as much as 60 percent of inventory records are inaccurate. That’s because traditional inventory checks are slow, manual and prone to error, leading to out-of-stocks that frustrate customers and hurt sales. On the flip side, excess inventory leads to inefficient use of retail space and waste.”
Each customer order updates Instacart’s view of what’s in a store, one item at a time. In addition, there’s its network of about 600,000 shoppers, who collect more than 10 million data points daily as they pick orders, identify out-of-stocks and make substitutions.
“When we combine all of this information, Instacart can form a more accurate, real-time understanding of what’s happening in a grocery store, so you get the ingredients you need when you want them,” said Daniel Danker, chief product officer for Instacart.
Store View
Store View combines AI and computer vision to power real-time inventory data tracking for partners across its platform.
Using the Instacart Shopper app, eligible shoppers will have access to a new type of earning opportunity where they can take videos of store shelves one aisle at a time. The Store View technology will analyze these videos to identify products that are in stock and those that are not.
Store View will launch with select retailers over the coming weeks, with plans to scale to more retailers across the U.S. and Canada throughout 2025.
Caper Carts have the ability to take continuous inventory tracking to the next level. The AI-powered smart carts currently use advanced sensor fusion and edge AI for item recognition and location-based recommendations.
Instacart can also produce heat maps of where carts are spending the most time for a fuller picture of what’s happening across stores and aisles. In the future, outward-facing cameras on Caper Carts will give Instacart and its partners a new understanding of inventory down to the store level, updating insights in some stores as frequently as every hour throughout the day.
Second Store Check
Even with more precise inventory tracking, there will inevitably be times when the item needed just isn’t available at the store when the shopper wants it. To combat this, Instacart has introduced Second Store Check, a way to source out-of-stock items from another location of the retailer selected by the customer.
When a shopper can’t find an ordered item, it can automatically ask a second shopper to check if the item is available at nearby store.
Second Store Check will roll out across the Instacart marketplace in the coming months.