Just over two years ago, Instacart acquired smart shopping cart startup Caper AI for $350mm in cash and stock in an effort to power technology inside of its retail partners’ four walls. The platform has since expanded its pilot rollouts to Schnucks and Good Food Holdings (Bristol Farms, Lazy Acres) as well as a full deployment to seven-unit IGA retailer Geissler’s. The value proposition of the technology is to “unify online and in-store for the best of grocery,” making in-store shopping more seamless and personalized. Namely, the grocer benefits fall into three categories:

Higher customer LTV & lower shrink

• Increased basket size
• Higher retention
• Anti-theft tracking

Incremental revenue streams

• Personalized promotions
• Real-time ads

Increased labor efficiency

• Fewer cashiers thanks to cart-integrated payment processing
• Reposition associates to more value-add activities (inventory, etc.)
• ~$0.85 in labor savings per transactions