Instacart Calls It Quits on Smart Carts

After several months of evaluating its smart cart business, Instacart has decided to wind down its Caper Carts operations. 

Instead the company will focus its resources on areas where it believes it can scale and deliver the most impact for its retail and brand partners, in addition to their shoppers. 

"While Caper is a great product, the business reality is that retailer adoption has not scaled quickly enough to justify our continued investment," Instacart noted in a company update.

Instacart told P2PI sibling publication Progressive Grocer that while roles were impacted, a large portion of employees will be remaining with the company and transitioning into new roles. 

Caper Carts were designed to offer consumers a streamlined, digitally augmented shopping experience. Equipped with interactive screens, cameras, location-tracking systems and built-in scales and scanners, users could clip coupons, redeem their loyalty benefits, find products throughout the store and check out straight from the cart. Grocers that have tested and/or implemented Caper Carts include Weis Markets, Schnucks, ShopRite, Wegmans, Kroger and many other independent retailers. 

"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," Instacart said in its update.

Instead of physical carts, the next phase of Instacart's in-store strategy will focus 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,” said the grocery delivery company. 

Most recently, Instacart introduced 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.