A Giant in Grocery, Instacart Wants to Be a Back-to-School Destination, Too

As back-to-school season rolls around, it’s a given that parents will worry about the welfare of their progeny—their safety, academic performance, the risk of cyberbullying and even what’s in the cafeteria lunches. But a survey conducted by OnePoll a few years ago revealed a concern that few people talk about: 42% of parents admitted they were stressed over buying school supplies.

It makes sense when you consider the numbers. The National Retail Federation recently reported that back-to-school spending will hit $41.5 billion this year, leaving the average household with a bill for $890. That figure, plus an ongoing worry about inflation, has led parents to start shopping earlier this year, searching for the best prices on essentials like notebooks, highlighters and sticky notes. Deloitte’s 2023 Back to School Survey, released July 16, revealed that 60% of shoppers will be hunting for good deals online.

Instacart will be waiting for them.

Order your carrots—and crayons, too

Instacart already enjoys a strong association with grocery delivery, but for the next six weeks the platform will focus its marketing efforts on telling parents that it can bring glue sticks and ballpoint pens to their doorsteps just as easily as it can drop off bread, milk and eggs.

A new 30-second spot titled “Back to School Delivered” shows a millennial dad, who is adding a pink streak to his daughter’s hair, on the Instacart app, pumped because his shopper has located the backpack that his daughter wants. Consumers may not have thought of Instacart as a way to find school accessories, electronics, clothing and even sporting equipment—but the platform’s new campaign, “You’ve Got This, Parents,” wants them to start.

Speaking with Adweek, CMO Laura Jones said the marketing effort aims to “highlight the message that we have everything [parents] need for back to school. Folks know Instacart for grocery, but we’ve got a ton of other items.”

You got it, and they’ve got you

Instacart has been branching out of groceries for a while now. When the pandemic isolated millions of Americans in their homes in 2020, for instance, it partnered with Costco to deliver prescription medications. Big box stores Lowe’s and Office Depot joined Instacart in 2022. Today, some 900 retailers are part of the platform’s network.

But the back-to-school shopping season, Jones said, has furnished the opportunity to remind shoppers of just how large and diverse that network has become: “[We are] assuring folks that, no matter what it is that you need—whether you’re planning in advance or finding yourself the night before school, realizing that you need a backpack—we will be there for you.”

Now’s the right time for a message like that. According to Deloitte’s survey, 85% of parents have yet to cross off even half the items on their back-to-school shopping list, and 21% say they’re undecided over where to find the best deals. “Retailers have opportunities to direct shoppers to more profitable channels,” Deloitte’s paper observed.

To woo them, Instacart has slashed its annual Instacart+ membership fee by half, to $49 for the first year. As an added incentive, the grocery tech brand is also touting its new, AI-enabled search feature that makes items easier to find, choose and purchase. The campaign comes as other delivery services, such as DoorDash and Uber, have fought to gain ground in areas outside of the categories in which they originally established themselves.

Machine learning goes shopping

In the past, users had to know what products they wanted before using Instagram’s app. Now, AI sifts through the brand’s 11 years of proprietary shopping data to suggest pertinent items, including some that the shopper may not even know about. (Seeking a piece of the action, brands including Chobani, Lunchables and Skippy have partnered with Instacart on this effort.) The second video of the campaign, titled “School Lunches with Instacart,” demonstrates the sort of questions the AI tool can handle.

“Lunch my kindergartner can make?” asks mom.

“You got it, how’s this?” responds the app. “Sun butter and banana sandwich.”

Even if sunflower seed butter is not your jam, the AI feature can handle surprisingly nuanced queries like: “My child is at a nut-free school. What should I pack for lunch the next five days?”

Showcasing an AI feature, Jones explained, was a chance for Instacart to differentiate itself at a time when retail’s traditional lines continue to blur. Grocery stores sell back-to-school supplies; Walmart sells groceries; and Amazon, of course, sells everything.

“The category gets more crowded every day,” Jones said. “So it’s really important important for us to innovate and make sure that what we’re offering is ahead of the curve in terms of making people’s lives easier.”

Not coincidentally, the two spots end with the slogan: “Add life to cart.”

Buy with us, stay with us

By making back-to-school shopping easier, Instacart is also revealing its biggest hope—that the incentives it’s offering will convert trial shoppers into permanent members.

“This is the moment in the year when everyone takes a fresh start and stocks up their cabinets,” Jones said. “The patterns that people establish then can last a whole year long.”

Perhaps. Retail analyst and author Bruce Winder is skeptical that a back-to-school incentive—even if gets some shoppers to buy a yearlong membership—will result in long-term loyalty.

“Instacart is in a brutal fight to try and maintain revenue as grocery delivery has softened post-pandemic and other providers like Uber Eats have used membership as both a revenue source and a forced loyalty program,” Winder said. “I have a hard time seeing how back-to-school fits well with their efforts.”

Winder added that titanic retailers such as Walmart, Target and Amazon already have a firm grip on back-to-school shopping. On July 6, Walmart began tagging school supplies with last year’s prices. Target is selling items like notebooks, markers and glue for 50 cents. And Amazon will reward shoppers who spend $40 on back-to-school items with a 20% discount.

Jones denies that the current campaign is any sort of response to “competitive dynamics” and believes that short-term incentives can and will create long-term loyalists.

“That’s the whole idea of integrating the limited-time offer with the idea of getting people into patterns,” she said. “We’re [telling them] here’s an offer and if you like this, we’ve got you all year long.”