Last mile delivery overview
The integrated last mile delivery (lastmile) endpoints have been deprecated and replaced with URIs that are consistent in format with the delivery and pickup URIs. This change reflects our commitment to making our API more intuitive to use when implementing multiple fulfillment workflows in your e-commerce site.
The deprecated endpoints continue to be supported for existing implementations. For new implementations, use the endpoints that are described in the Implement last mile delivery tutorial.
For last mile delivery orders, a retailer employee does the shopping without using the Instacart Shopper app. When the order is ready, a shopper picks up and delivers the order. Instacart Connect offers a set of lastmile endpoints for this use case.
If you want the shopper to use the Instacart Shopper app, you should use the endpoints for delivery instead. For more information, see Delivery user journey or Implement delivery.
You can create a last mile delivery order by using a set of integrated calls.
Integrated last mile delivery
Integrated last mile delivery is the preferred option. Use it to integrate closely with the Instacart service option system. The endpoints for last mile delivery orders are similar to the endpoints used for delivery orders or pickup orders.
There are a few key benefits to the integrated approach. The order flow is broken down into multiple distinct calls, which makes it easier to display progress and show error messaging to your users at the correct part of your workflow. The calls are further broken down into multiple discrete operations, which means that there are latency benefits because each operation takes less time to execute on the Instacart services.
For more information, see Implement last mile delivery.