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October 14, 2024
Do Grocery Shoppers Want Instacart’s Gamified Quests?
Instacart has added gamification to its Caper Carts to reward, incentivize, and thrill customers for playing mini-games in grocery store aisles.
“New gamified quests make grocery shopping feel like an adventure,” said Instacart in a press release. “Quests are interactive mini-games that customers can complete using a Caper Cart, creating an even more enjoyable and rewarding shopping experience. This new Caper feature encourages customers to earn rewards and credits while enhancing savings and product discovery among customers as they shop.”
The AI-powered quests appear on the Caper Cart digital screen with lights and sounds to alert customers when they are available.
Examples of gamified quests include:
- Flash deals: Customers participate in a “treasure hunt” inspired shop, where they follow a map of the store and periodically see flash deals as they shop. Flash deals can help customers discover new products but also earn savings on their favorites.
- Rewards for repeat visits: Customers may earn credits, like $10 off their next visit, when they complete a “shopping streak,” such as three shops with a Caper Cart in one month.
- Credits for coupon clipping: Clipping a specific number of personalized digital coupons on a Caper Cart earns customers credits, which could be equivalent to $5 at the end of their shop.
Quests are also customizable and designed in partnership with retailers and brands, holding the potential for personalization for shoppers and targeting for advertisers.
Adding to the gamification possibilities is Instacart’s introduction of location-based coupons earlier this year that alert customers to nearby deals for relevant items as they shop each aisle. In the future, location-based coupons will be tailored to each customer, based on previously purchased items or contents of their Caper Cart.
Instacart wrote, “For example, when a customer rolls into the bakery department, Caper Cart’s digital screen will surface a coupon for a dollar off a box of muffins and notify the customer with an alert. This builds on Instacart’s current coupon offering, where more than 40% of Caper Cart users clip coupons.”
Caper Cart’s new capabilities follow the pilot earlier this year of location-based ad formats. Since then, Caper Cart’s footprint has nearly quadrupled, and the company plans to “reach thousands of carts live in stores in the coming months.” Instacart’s new cart capabilities are rolling out at retailers like Schnucks and Wakefern Food Corp., and brands including General Mills and PepsiCo have already partnered with the company.
Starbucks’ Star Dash personalized offers, Sephora’s Tinder-like “Swipe it. Shop it” app feature and quizzes, rewards programs from Nike and Victoria’s Secret, and eBay’s auction platform are among programs often cited as primary examples of gamification models that help retailers drive customer engagement.
A recent survey of nearly 2,200 U.S. adults from Lobyco, which provides digital loyalty programs, found that 55% (67% of Gen Z respondents) believe gamification programs from grocers are “very” or “extremely” important. When they win these games, more than half (59%) will visit a retail location to redeem rewards. However, the survey also found gamification seemingly underutilized by retailers, as only 6% of respondents have actually played scratch-to-win or spin-to-win games from a grocer.
Sean Turner, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Swiftly, which offers retailers personalization tools that support gamification efforts, told the Food Institute that requiring the common practice of forcing in-store shoppers to download a new app or scan pictures of receipts often leads to failed gamification efforts. However, he believes gamification has the potential to deliver personalization at scale.
He said, “While a personal relationship with your cashier or your butcher is a great way to build loyalty, this is difficult to scale. With gamification, stores can put some of that burden on technology to build stronger customer relationships. This also lets grocers be much more fair in how they reward customers.”
Discussion Questions
What do you think of the potential for gamification to reimagine grocery shopping?
What type of gamification experiences will be most (and least) appealing to in-store grocery shoppers?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Ananda Chakravarty
Vice President, Research at IDC
Georganne Bender
Principal, KIZER & BENDER Speaking
Patricia Vekich Waldron
Contributing Editor, RetailWire; Founder and CEO, Vision First
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For a start I remain skeptical about smart carts which I see as an expensive and hugely over-engineered solution for grocery retailers. There are far simpler ways of reducing checkout time and friction. Second, most grocery shoppers are not in a mindset to play games. Grocery shopping can be difficult and people want ease and efficiency. Some of the Instacart gamification – like rewarding people for using the carts – is reasonable. However, trying to get shoppers to embark on a treasure hunt for bargains is just silly. I think this has been designed by someone who has never been grocery shopping!
I think this has been designed by someone who has never been grocery shopping! This observation – and we could sub the last few words with “…never run a business” or “…never actually faced the problem they claim to be solving” – seems to be apt for a lot of the bright ideas floated here in the discussion forums..doesn’t it?
Well Said Neil !!! EASE and Efficiency!
This might be an interesting way to keep the kids entertained while mom shops, but who needs grocery shopping to be an adventure? Not me. Shopping for groceries is a chore I want to get through as quickly as possible. It requires me to pay attention when reading labels and choosing the right meats and produce. A cart that interrupts me with bells and whistles and coupons just sounds annoying.
Anyone remember Vide-O-Cart? These implementations are too good expensive and generate too little incremental revenue to be a smart investment. Especially for grocery, where most shoppers have a specific meal problem to solve.
Agreed. The last thing I need is to be entertained when I am shopping for food. I already use the retailer’s app for coupons and deals. The last thing I need to use two apps continuously to do my grocery shopping.
thrill customers for playing mini-games in grocery store aisles. And annoy the He** out of everyone else being obstructed by these clowns. Please, no.
I love the thinking here. I recall reading about gamification of this type specifically in Korea 10+ years ago.
Success or otherwise depends on whether the overall offer is valid and exciting for the consumers. Grocery shopping for many is considered mundane but necessary so if anything can make it more entertaining then this is good. However there is a bigger thing to consider – cost. Where gamification requires extensive installation of hardware the costs can be huge. Ultimately this eats into margins and the consumer is paying for it in some way. Consumers may realise this – and ask themselves if it is worth it – would they prefer a proposition elsewhere.
The ‘cheaper proposition’ tends to do very well when there is a downturn – so organisations investing heavily in gamification may need to be cautious in the longer term.
Our data repeatedly shows that consumers want the fastest, most efficient digital shopping experience. The priority is getting them what they want, rather than providing entertainment and engagement. I don’t see this being super successful.
Reminds me of Kmarts blue light special- except that it’s fully embedded in the cart rather than floating around the store with an associate. This might be interesting to the bargain hunter seeking to save on their purchases, and combined with the tracking of items in the cart can be valuable to some shoppers. However, the expectation will be savings on my purchase and a simpler purchasing process. So long as it meets these goals- without too much extravagance, it can successfully drive adoption of the carts. Anything else will be too fluffy for the average consumer, with limited adoption.
The framing of “gamification” is wrong, but focusing on incentivizing behaviors is right. Grocery shoppers do not want to play inefficient games, but it’s proven they will pursue savings such as coupons and loyalty rewards. Deep hooks into loyalty rewards and awareness will drive CaperCart usage, but anything that requires more work (aka “Quests” or “interactive mini-games” will be met with resistance. No one has time for that at the grocery store. Get in, get out. Save as much as you can.
Agree with other comments on the carts being a poor, inefficient vehicle to engage customers. However, I have spoken with Amazon Fresh store managers who share that people wait for one of their 20 Dash Carts on the weekends. Dash Carts don’t have games (or even support consumer pick to light to simplify locating product), just a bit of info and the convenience of just walk out checkout.
Gamification is the win here. But gamification should be app driven and extend outside the store to increase retailer engagement. Mobile gaming is a highly engaging, valuable and natural extension to any retailer’s retail media network platform. No smart cart required.
I can’t think of a succcess based on gamification but I can think of flashes in the pan that ultimately failed like fourSquare (who had to completely revamp their business model)…remember you would check in and possibly become the mayor? Yeah, didn’t last too long.
Given how busy consumers are, I can’t see many shoppers wanting to spend time on mini games and quests while trying to get their groceries. I agree with others in the comments that when it comes to groceries, shoppers want a fast and efficient experience.
I am completely with Neil on this one. How many shopping carts end up NOT on the premises and the expense does not justify the return.
As for the use case, if you are dithering in the aisle, any aisle, in search of winning a shopping cart supported game, then you have too much time on your hands and I recommend some kind of therapy. Well, just kidding about the therapy but still, find something better to do with your time, like read Retailwire.