Instacart is introducing a way for shoppers to make money taking videos of store shelves one aisle at a time through a new service called Store View, which allows the platform to determine which products are available and which ones are out of stock. The tool will also help its predictive models estimate when a store will restock a particular product.
The company's AI shopping carts, Caper Carts, will also be able to assist with tracking live inventory in the future using their sensors and cameras to recognize items on shelves.
Instacart is planning to launch Store View with select retailers in the coming weeks, with plans to roll it out to more US and Canadian stores later in the year.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective to install permanent Instacart cameras on the aisles?
Instacart also revealed a new feature called Second Store Check — which shoppers are going to love (he said sarcastically).
Second Store Check introduces the ability to ask a second shopper at a nearby store if the item is available there instead. Instacart didn't specify in their announcement what comes next, but I imagine that the two shoppers either need to link up to exchange products, or the second shopper will need to delivery that item to the original customer as well.