Gearing up for IPO, Instacart acquires AI-powered pricing and promotions platform

Instacart is transforming pricing strategies and promotions for its CPG and retail partners — and delivering savings for cash-strapped customers in the process.  

The San Francisco-based online delivery giant has acquired Eversight, an AI-powered pricing and promotions platform that is tailor-made for the grocery industry. 

The automated solution enables brands and retailers to individually optimize programs while creating savings for customers by replacing highly manual methods.  

With Eversight’s experimentation-based platform, CPG brands and retailers are able to continuously test customized pricing and promotions directly with individual customers. This allows for brands to receive real-time, custom insights into the promotions that best resonate with customers, and retail partners use their physical and digital storefronts to run ongoing, individualized micro-price-point experiments. 

“Giving everyone access to the food they love is core to Instacart’s mission, and when it comes to grocery shopping, we know that every dollar matters. With higher inflation and the average cost of groceries up, we’re taking even more steps to make food and daily essentials more affordable,” said Fidji Simo, CEO of Instacart. 

“We founded Eversight to help brands and retailers be more agile and consumer-centric with their pricing and promotions decisions. This is particularly critical in today’s high inflation environment, with rapidly changing shopping behavior,” said David Moran, co-founder and chairman of Eversight, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. 

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The benefit of Eversight is in its ability to provide nuanced insights, the company claims. For example, a CPG brand partner was looking to improve an in-store promotion's performance but was concerned about the risks that come with trialing new offers in-store. The brand employed the Eversight solution to quickly adjust the promotion, resulting in a 10% incremental unit sales growth. The CPG replaced more than 100 weeks of the old promotion with the new offer. 

“Now more than ever, it’s critical that we’re delivering the right promotions to the right consumers,” said Lynn Hemans, vice president of consumer intelligence and analytics at The Hershey Company, based in Derry Township, Pa. “The capabilities that Eversight and Instacart can bring to market together have the potential to be a significant improvement in how CPG brands learn, test and measure campaigns across the grocery industry.”

Eversight’s CPG and retail partners include many of Instacart’s partners, including Hershey’s as well as The Coca-Cola Co. and Raley’s.

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The new CPG offerings will also fit into the Instacart Ads product and technology suite, which provides brands with measurable advertising opportunities and insights. 

For retailers, Eversight’s retail technology will be among the Instacart platform’s solutions that enhance and digitize grocery retail to create an omnichannel experience for customers. Eversight will be available to retailers through Carrot Insights, Instacart’s data dashboard that tracks key performance and operational metrics to help optimize operations, provide more connected online and in-store shopping experiences, and make informed business decisions.

Instacart says it is taking a multifaceted approach to increasing affordability for customers, including providing access to a variety of value and club retailers, fulfillment options like pickup and “No Rush” next-day delivery, payment options including EBT SNAP, as well as ways to find promotions, coupons and discounts from the Instacart App Deals Tab. 

This move adds to the slew of activity on Instacart’s part as it gears up for a projected IPO. The company recently introduced a Instacart membership, including 5% cash back on pickup orders, and the new Instacart Chase card, which provides a 5% statement credit on all Instacart purchases.