Instacart has introduced new software that allows stores and brands to view store shelves in real time. The solution was announced on Monday, September 21. It enables retailers and manufacturers to 'map the entire store down to individual products on the shelves,' allowing them to quickly respond to changes in store conditions.
According to Ryan Hamburger, Chief Commercial Officer of Instacart, 'grocery stores are the most complex physical environments in retail.' He noted that traditional inventory management systems fail to reflect current realities and rely on estimates and periodic counts, leaving retailers and brands with an incomplete picture of what is happening on the shelves. Instacart utilizes data collected from a network of approximately 600,000 shoppers who visit stores more than 15 times a day on average, resulting in the collection of over 10 million unique data points each day.
By using data gathered through shelf scanning, Instacart is developing a 'real-time overview of what is happening on store shelves,' allowing brands and stores to see available products as well as identify demand fluctuations that affect inventory. Additionally, Instacart has announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence named Clementine, which combines customer purchase history with current store inventory to create a shopping basket based on a single prompt, such as 'light dinners high in protein for two.'
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