Instacart Connect Fulfillment API
Offer your customers the convenience of Instacart scheduling, full-service shopping, delivery, pickup, last mile delivery, and dispatch last mile delivery with the Instacart Connect Fulfillment API.
The Fulfillment API brings together the best of a Grocery API, Delivery API, and Pickup API. You can offer full-service shopping, where shoppers use the Instacart Shopper app while picking and suggest replacements from your catalog. You can offer same-day or scheduled delivery and pickup options with or without the full-service shopping experience. And when an order transitions to a new status in the order flow, you can notify customers to keep them up to date. With the Fulfillment API, you implement the set of capabilities you want within a unified API platform experience.
After you implement the Fulfillment API into your e-commerce site, your customers shop your site for groceries or other items as usual. They select a delivery or pickup and then select a time slot for when they'd like to receive their order. If a customer chooses delivery, a shopper delivers the purchased items to the customer.
You can choose the fulfillment options that you want to implement to fulfill your customer orders.
While Instacart focuses on solutions for grocery retailers and their customers, any retailer can benefit by using the Fulfillment API and the Instacart shopper network to fulfill their customer orders.
Fulfillment options
You can choose to offer any of the following options:
| Option | Description | Use cases |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery | Instacart delivers the order. A shopper uses the Instacart Shopper app while picking the ordered items for the customer. The customer receives order status notifications and shopper communications. | Full-service delivery, Delivery only |
| Pickup | The customer wants to pick up the order. A shopper uses the Instacart Shopper app while picking the ordered items for the customer. The customer receives order status notifications and shopper communications. | Full-service pickup, Partner-pick pickup |
| Last mile delivery | A retailer employee picks the order using the retailer’s existing picking technology. When the order is ready, the retailer stages the order for a shopper to pick up and deliver. This fulfillment option enables you to show available time slots based on estimated capacity. | Delivery only of retailer-picked orders (without the Instacart Shopper app) |
| Dispatch last mile delivery | A retailer employee picks the order using the retailer’s existing picking technology. When the order is ready, the retailer stages the order for a shopper to pick up and deliver. This fulfillment option is the simplest method of adding last mile delivery capabilities to your site. | Delivery only of retailer-picked orders (without the Instacart Shopper app) |
For more information, see Fulfillment options.
Instacart Connect API
Instacart Connect APIs are RESTful. They use predictable, resource-oriented URLs and HTTP response codes. The APIs use built-in HTTP features, such as HTTP authentication and HTTP verbs, which are understood by HTTP clients.
As the Instacart Connect product evolves and improves, we might make changes to the APIs to take advantage of new capabilities and improvements. All changes made to APIs maintain backwards compatibility. Any new fields are optional and can be ignored if you want the APIs to continue to function as is.
Before you begin
To integrate Instacart Connect APIs with your ecommerce site, you need the following items:
- A signed agreement with Instacart
- The URLs for your assigned Instacart Connect development and production servers
- Your Instacart Connect client ID and secret
- The storefront that you use to develop new components and flows
If you are missing any of the Instacart items, contact your Instacart representative.
Using the Fulfillment API
Use the following guides to help you get started with the Connect Fulfillment API:
- To understand the user journeys, see these topics in the Concepts section:
- To get started with Connect APIs, see these topics in the Tutorials section:
- To review the endpoints, see: API reference
We are enhancing the Fulfillment Guide with concepts, tutorials, and how-to guides. If you don’t see a feature or use case described there, check the Fulfillment API documentation or contact your Instacart representative to discuss your requirements.