Instacart acquired Caper, a company that makes a smart shopping cart.
“Caper was an acquisition we made a number of years ago, and it's a smart shopping cart.”
Person
David McIntosh
1 episodes · 21 quoted claims
The Caper cart has a digital screen, camera sensors, a basket that works as a scale, and location sensors.
“with a digital screen, camera sensors, the entire basket's a scale so you can weigh produce in the scale, location sensors, so the cart knows where it's at”
David McIntosh said Caper carts were live in more than one hundred cities.
“we're now, for context, live in more than one hundred cities.”
Caper carts charge when pushed into each other or into a charger, whereas McIntosh says the industry previously relied on manually plugging in carts.
“as you push the carts into each other or to a charger, they just charge. Sounds obvious, uh, you know, in hindsight, but before us, the industry was really based around manually plugging in carts”
David McIntosh said retailer A/B studies consistently found significant, in some cases double-digit percentage, increases in consumer spend with Caper carts.
“consistently, what they're finding is there's significant, in some cases, double-digit percentage increases in consumer spend using the Caper carts.”
Caper added a 'Did you forget?' screen shown to shoppers as they approach checkout.
“we launched a capability where as a user was approaching checkout, we surface a screen that says, Did you forget?”
David McIntosh said the 'Did you forget?' feature alone produced an incremental 0.9% increase in spend.
“And so that one feature alone drove an incremental 0.9% spend.”
David McIntosh said the running total is popular because most Americans shop on a budget and do not want to be over budget at the checkout line.
“the vast majority of Americans are shopping on a specific budget. And nobody wants to get to the line, realize they're over budget and have to put something back.”
Instacart let store staff perform checkout verifications on the cart instead of on a tablet, a change McIntosh called important.
“giving staff the option of conducting those verifications on cart versus on the tablet, that slight tooling change, that slight tooling tweak”
Instacart built the Caper cart to process AI on the device because many stores have large gaps in Wi-Fi coverage.
“And so we had to build the cart to really deal with these big gaps in Wi-Fi throughout the store, which means a lot of these intelligent systems need to be on device at the edge.”
David McIntosh said Caper's cameras are focused on recognizing products going into and out of the cart.
“The cameras are focused solely on recognizing products, right? And what's going into the cart, what you're taking out of the cart.”
Caper's side-facing cameras look at store shelves to help retailers see what is in stock.
“the side-facing cameras are focused on the shelf and helping retailers understand what's in stock, what's out of stock.”
Instacart's Store View product lets its shoppers scan store shelves with a mobile phone while picking orders.
“We have a product called Store View, where Instacart shoppers that are going in a store to pick an order can also scan the shelf with their mobile phone.”
David McIntosh said Caper's gamification features were inspired by a store walk with Neil Stern of Good Food Holdings.
“our gamification experiences were actually inspired by a store walk with a grocer. This was a partner of ours, CEO of of Good Food Holdings, Neil Stern.”
Good Food Holdings executives described hiding plastic ladybugs in stores for children to find, which inspired Caper's gamification features.
“they would put plastic ladybugs throughout the store, and they would let kids find the ladybugs.”
David McIntosh said Instacart spent its last decade bringing retailers online with e-commerce, fulfillment and retail media solutions.
“The last decade of Instacart's history, we brought their business online with e commerce solutions, fulfillment solutions, retail media solutions.”
Instacart sells its in-store technologies as modular products rather than requiring retailers to adopt all six at once.
“our approach is that the technologies have to be modular. So we don't go to retailers and say, hey, you should adopt all these six products at once.”
Instacart's connected-store offering includes FoodStorm software for the deli and prepared counter, plus electronic shelf tags with pick-to-light technology.
“the deli and the prepare or counter with FoodStorm, the software, the shelf tags, the ESL tags that sit on the shelf with our pick-to-light technology”
David McIntosh said in-store product displays often exist because a consumer packaged goods company paid someone to print and set them up.
“those didn't happen by magic. That happened because often a CPG actually had to pay somebody from their extended team to print the item.”
David McIntosh proposed that an AI agent could communicate with suppliers about low stock without a human in the middle.
“why put a human in the middle of that? Why not have, for example, an agent communicate with the suppliers in the background?”
Instacart's stated vision is that within five to ten years customers will not have to choose between shopping in store and online.
“Our vision is that on a five to ten year horizon, customers won't have to choose between shopping in store and online.”