Instacart and Foodcellar Market in NY introduce Scan & Pay checkout
NEW YORK — Long Island City grocer Foodcellar Market is the first retailer to fully deploy Instacart’s Scan & Pay technology in stores — part of the company’s Connected Stores solutions.
Customers will now be able to scan items with their phone as they shop — from loose items like weighted fresh produce to middle aisle products like cereal or canned goods — and pay for them using their mobile phones, according to a news release.
Scan & Pay connects shoppers' online and in-store experiences, linking items bought in-store to their online Instacart account, making it easier to shop their preferred items from Foodcellar.
“At Foodcellar Market, we know that our customers’ time is precious, and we're dedicated to ensuring that every moment they spend with us is enjoyable and efficient,” Foodcellar Market co-founder Metin Mangut said in the release. “Our customers have shared their surprise at how easy it is to use Scan & Pay; there's no need to download an app or learn complicated technology. We’ve been really pleased with the early adoption and our store associates love how Scan & Pay reduces stress for them too.”
Budget-conscious shoppers and Scan & Pay can track their spending as they scan items to avoid an unwelcome surprise total at the register.
This is how it works:
- To get started, Foodcellar Market shoppers scan the QR code on the sign located at the front of the store, which opens Scan & Pay in a mobile browser.
- With that browser open on their phones, they can add items to their basket as they shop.
- When they are finished, customers can checkout from anywhere in the store directly from their phones.
- As they leave the store, they show a QR code to confirm their payment.
In the initial weeks since launch, Scan & Pay has been most popular during the peak shopping hours of 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., and for smaller basket sizes, typically fewer than 10 items.
“Scan & Pay is helping customers to stay on budget while shopping in-store,” David McIntosh, vice president and general manager of Connected Stores at Instacart, said in the release.
What about theft?
Instacart's continuing development of Scan & Pay's loss prevention capabilities is based on more than a decade of experience working across the grocery industry, using Instacart’s understanding of the signals and patterns that indicate potential fraud.
Retailers such as Foodcellar will be able to monitor Scan & Pay transactions in real-time via dashboards and stay on top of any pattern shifts.
The partnership goes beyond
Foodcellar Market has long partnered with Instacart, serving as an innovation and testing hub for Caper Carts, Instacart’s AI-powered shopping carts, since 2018 and a partner for its e-commerce business since 2016.
Scan & Pay is part of Connected Stores, a bundle of Instacart Platform technologies that help grocers bridge the best of online ordering and in-store shopping.
