Retail Channels
25 August 2022
A new Instacart feature lets you shop Lizzo's favorite groceries
Shoppable Carts are among a host of new features designed to inspire – on Instacart and beyond.

Shoppable Carts are among a host of new features designed to inspire – on Instacart and beyond.
On Instacart, you can now order Lizzo’s favorite groceries for delivery.
That's among the capabilities being introduced Thursday as Instacart rolls out a series of new discovery-focused shopping content and experiences on its app. With an eye on inspiring shoppers, Instacart is adding more content and curation. It placing these features front and center for users, while extending the experiences beyond the app itself.
With the launch, Instacart is debuting “The World is Your Cart,” a new creative platform that features Lizzo, the Grammy-award winning musician and entrepreneur. The rollout is coupled with the launch of a new campaign with a film featuring Lizzo and her song “The Sign,” the first track off of her new album “Special.”
As Instacart describes it, “The film starts in an everyday setting with Lizzo at the center, using the Instacart app, and progresses into hyper-real and fantastical scenes in which her world comes to life as she adds items to her digital cart.” A new 30-second feature will debut at the MTV Video Music Awards, as well.
Within the app itself, Instacart is launching a new shopping experience called Carts. Here, pop culture personalities, retailers and creators will be able to curate collections of shoppable content that feature products they love. The idea is to help consumers discover new items.
With the launch, Lizzo is featuring a shoppable cart filled with her favorite vegan treats and products featured in "The World is Your Cart.” Items include Coca-Cola, Oreos, Skittles and Swiffer Dusters. This demonstrates how Instacart can connect in-app experiences with broader campaigns.
“A shoot where I get to sit in a bubble bath and shop all day? Sign me up Instacart! This spot is so dynamic, and people will see me shopping and imagining what each item could lead to, from a desertscape of Takis – which are always in my cart – to a rain shower of cherries," Lizzo said in a statement. "I’m also excited to share my shoppable Cart which includes so many of my favorite things. I hope that my Cart inspires people to get all the stuff they love or maybe even try something different."
Other Carts will be built around themes, including “Self Care Sunday,” “Late Night Noms” and "Date Night."
Instacart is giving this new feature prominent placement. The Carts are surfaced in the Home feed on Instacart’s app, featured in the center of the display. The idea is that customers can be inspired by the items in these Carts, then select them for delivery from nearby locations.
“‘The World is Your Cart’ is a rallying cry that reminds us of the abundant possibilities of each product we add to our Carts and satiates our curiosity by enabling others’ Carts to spark our own creativity,” said Laura Jones, Chief Marketing Officer at Instacart, in a statement. “In addition to capturing these possibilities across our new creative platform, we’re making them a reality by injecting discovery-driven cart-building experiences across the Instacart app – so you can browse, be inspired, and turn that inspiration into reality by getting your items delivered to your door in as fast as an hour.”
Along with Carts, Instacart detailed additional shoppable experiences across the app that are designed to inspire.
More than 5,500 CPG brand partners are sharing storytelling content through Brand Pages, Shoppable Display, and Shoppable Video ad formats.
Building on the release of Shoppable Recipes earlier this year, Instacart is debuting a new feature called Recipe Maker. This allows publishers and bloggers to add shoppable content to their websites. Hearst is using it on food properties including Delish. A developer API and widget will also be made available.
With an eye toward monetization for those who product content included that is featured on Instacart, the company is also rolling out a new affiliate program, called Instacart Tastemakers, that will enable creators, publishers and developers to monetize purchases made through these experiences. Instacart said it plans to roll out more ways for partners to monetize content by leveraging a fuller Shoppable Recipes ecosystem that it is creating for brands and retailers.
Shopping experiences are increasingly blending content, commerce and curation. Instacart’s new experiences show how this fits into grocery shopping. At the same time, it opens up a new way for creators to plug directly into an ecommerce marketplace, and connect it to campaigns happening around the media sphere.
Ask Instacart answers prompts with personalized recommendations.
A pair of recent launches from Instacart highlight how the grocery ecommerce company is integrating two of the key emerging areas of technology into its offerings: Generative AI and marketplaces.
Let’s take a look:
Instacart is seeking to harness generative AI to create a more personalized shopping experience.
A new tool called Ask Instacart that is launching this week is designed to allow customers to type in questions about specific recipes or general recommendations for an occasion. Embedded in the search bar, Ask Instacart also provides personalized questions to be asked by customers. In addition to specific items, it provides information about food preparation, product attributes and dietary considerations.
For those eying how generative AI will play a role in the shopping experience, Ask Instacart shows how search can be transformed into a place for discovery. Instacart is aiming to provide answers to the more open-ended questions that people would naturally ask, not just simply provide info in response to a question that has one answer. It shared the following sample prompts:
The tool is also showing the way for generative AI to integrate with retail media. Ask Instacart is designed to integrate with a brand's sponsored products campaign, so that the answers to questions that match consumer needs can also provide a way for brands to stand out.
To create the tool, Instacart combined the language understanding of ChatGPT with its own AI models. It added in catalog data from 80,000 retail partner locations around the country, which together have more than one billion shoppable items.
Beyond mission: Ecommerce marketplaces have honed a shopping experience where it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. But if shoppers want to happen upon something they didn’t know they needed, social media or the store is still the best place to visit. Instacart is showing how generative AI can make discovery a marketplace function. It also signals that advertising will come to generative AI by way of retail media. Going forward, the growth of discovery could make retail media more valuable as a tool for advertising that raises brand awareness, not just lower-funnel conversions.
Instacart will power a new virtual convenience store for the grocery chain Aldi.
Aldi Express will feature 2,000 of the most-shopped Aldi items, ranging from prepared food and snacks to grocery staples.
Drawing on 2,100 Aldi locations around the country, items will be delivered as fast as 30 minutes, the companies said.
“Through ALDI Express, we’re making shopping more convenient so you can satisfy a craving or get a missing ingredient in minutes,” said Scott Patton, VP of National Buying at ALDI, in a statement. “Together with Instacart, we’ll continue to find ways to innovate and make the online grocery experience even more effortless and accessible.”
Aldi began offering delivery via Instacart in 2017, and has since expanded services to include pickup as well as alcohol delivery.
Aldi’s marketplace moment? While Aldi previously offered delivery, making the assortment available through a virtual store offers the opportunity to create a marketplace for its goods. With the virtual store, it will more closely resemble DoorDash and Uber Eats, which have been expanding their grocery assortment. With a marketplace, additional revenue opportunities could open up for the grocer, such as advertising through retail media.