Instacart connects millions of customers with their favourite grocers, partnering with more than 1,800 national, regional and local retailers across nearly 100,000 store locations. These orders are brought to life by more than 600,000 shoppers. To deliver groceries quickly, Instacart required a payments infrastructure that could keep moving money reliably between customers to retailers, and ensuring shoppers got paid fast. Instacart chose Stripe in 2012 as one of its first technology partners, using Stripe to process online payments and help it scale from a local start-up to a service now available to over 98% of households in North America.

As the platform has grown, Stripe technology has delivered the flexibility Instacart needed to launch fast, adapt quickly and meet the expectations of customers, shoppers and retailers alike.

"We've been partners with Stripe since the beginning, and one of our most important mandates is to grow and scale the business through payments", said David Beck, payments partnerships lead at Instacart. "We're continually evaluating and adding new Stripe products and features to drive growth and cost savings. Payments play a huge role in our offering, and we're highly focused on reducing friction across the entire checkout experience to better serve our customers".

Enhancing the checkout experience

One way Instacart reduces friction is by continuously adding new payment options, allowing customers to pay in the way that suits them best. Instacart has used Stripe Payments to keep up with the changing landscape for digital payments, quickly and easily adding new payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay in addition to debit and credit cards to keep pace with customer preferences.

In 2022, Instacart expanded its payment methods again by adding buy now, pay later (BNPL) through Klarna, which allows customers to pay for their purchase in four interest-free instalments. Since launching Klarna, Instacart has seen its BNPL payment volume grow, inspiring the company to work on adding support for more providers.

"Adding BNPL is a big initiative for us because it gives our customers even more ways to pay based on their preferences. BNPL helps us reach new audiences, especially customers who prefer this payment method over traditional payment methods", said Beck.

Instacart also uses authorisation optimisations such as Stripe's card account updater to automatically update card information to prevent payment failures. "We're happy with the improvements we've seen in performance over time", said Beck. "Stripe's tools positively impact our acceptance and authorisation rates".

To get real-time insights into Business performance, Instacart usesStripe Data Pipeline. Data Pipeline powers AI tools that help Instacart's team ask targeted questions about how specific Stripe products – such as network tokens, card account updates and authorisation tools – are being used over time. These insights help Instacart further refine its checkout experience, informing decisions such as which payment methods to add and how to optimise existing ones.

"Data Pipeline gives us clear, clean access to a substantial amount of data that would otherwise be difficult to obtain", said Beck.

Instacart partners with Stripe's professional services team for strategic implementation guidance and expertise. The team conducted a deep analysis of Instacart's technical architecture and provided actionable recommendations, enabling Instacart to resolve challenges and pursue goals. The Stripe team worked closely with Instacart, driving the strategy for off-session charges, helping the company avoid having to restructure its checkout and payment flows. The teams maintain a close relationship, spanning several years, and built on transparency and trust.

Powering new ways to order

Instacart has used its flexible payments infrastructure to experiment and go to market with new business models faster. Over the past decade, Instacart has expanded beyond groceries into products such as alcohol, office supplies, beauty products and prescriptions.

For example, Instacart recently launched Fizz, a stand-alone app for groups to order drinks and snacks. Fizz lets multiple people contribute to a single order, pay for their own items and share delivery for a flat fee.

"We stood Fizz up in a remarkably short amount of time", said Beck. "Stripe understands our payment flows and the complexity of our platform, which makes it much easier to move fast with confidence".

Instacart implemented Stripe Connect's flexible, modular configuration capabilities to properly route payments and ensure merchants remain the merchant of record for alcohol transactions, which is key for compliance with local regulations. Stripe also enables customisations such as dynamic statement descriptors that clarify charges on customers' credit card statements, reducing confusion and support tickets.

"We use Connect when applicable to ensure merchants get paid directly and funds are properly reconciled", said Beck.

Connect makes it easy for Instacart to provide both shoppers and merchants with a personalised, secure dashboard where they can view payouts, transaction history and performance data. "Connect lets us seamlessly onboard merchants, pay shoppers and provide KYC and security", said Beck. "The dashboards and reporting improve transparency and strengthen our relationships across our ecosystem".

To further streamline its service, Instacart uses Stripe Issuing to provide physical cards for in-store fulfilment. These Stripe-issued cards allow Instacart's shoppers to pay at the register, eliminating the need for shoppers to pay out of pocket and wait for reimbursement, whilst also helping Instacart simplify order fulfilment and reduce administrative overhead.
"We trust Stripe to provide our shoppers with a seamless in-store checkout experience", said Beck.

As Instacart continues to explore new ways to deliver convenience to customers and value to partners, Beck expects that Stripe will remain an integral partner.

"Working with Stripe has had a positive impact on our business", said Beck. "They're a trusted partner, and we feel confident launching new solutions on Stripe. As we pursue new initiatives, we see opportunities to expand our use of Stripe products and continue building on the relationship we've established".