Catalog
An accurate retailer catalog is the foundation of a successful full-service fulfillment workflow. When you share your catalog with Instacart, it enables Instacart Connect to include a list of items in the order that goes to the shoppers. If a shopper can't find an item in an order, they can suggest replacement items from your catalog.
Within catalogs, products are organized into departments and aisles. All products offered for sale at a store must belong to an active department and aisle. You can have draft versions of products that are not available in a store until you enable them.
If your retailer organization sells through Instacart Marketplace, you already send your catalog to Instacart. Instacart Connect accesses the same catalog to create the lists of items in your customers' orders.
Catalog integration
If this is your first time sharing your catalog with Instacart, an Instacart representative provides you with the catalog specification and a template to use. Your IT department can help map your catalog data to the template. Catalog files are uploaded securely to Instacart through SSH File Transfer Protocol (also known as Secure File Transfer Protocol or SFTP).
To ensure time for testing, upload a catalog a couple of weeks before you launch your Connect-enabled site. The catalog should represent the entire catalog for at least one store to help identify missing data or images. The uploaded catalog can be viewed in the Instacart Platform Portal.
Restricted products
Restricted products are products that have legal restrictions, such as age and quantity limitations. Legal restrictions vary by region. Your catalog can contain restricted products as long as they are not on the Instacart list of prohibited products. To enable the sale of restricted products, contact your Instacart representative.
Restricted products include:
When a cart contains a product that requires age validation, the retailer site must request the customer’s date of birth and include it in the order sent to Instacart. If the date of birth is missing or the customer is not old enough to purchase the item, Instacart Connect either returns an error or removes the item from the order based on your configuration.
Prohibited products
Instacart reserves the right to refuse to fulfill certain types of products. While your ecommerce store might sell these products, the catalog you send to Instacart can't contain them. If prohibited products are included, they are marked restricted and any orders containing a prohibited product return Item not found errors. Shoppers can't shop for or deliver products that are on the list of prohibited products.
Products are prohibited for the following reasons:
- Health and safety risk to shoppers, such as weapons
- Legal restrictions, such as products containing controlled substances
- Fraud risk, such as gambling products
For an up-to-date list of prohibited products, contact your Instacart representative.
Catalog synchronization
You decide how often you want to update your catalog with Instacart and whether you update the entire catalog every time. Upload files daily or as frequently as your pricing and availability changes. Your IT department creates and automates the process to upload the catalog data to Instacart.
Catalog best practices
The following best practices help to reduce or eliminate potential issues:
- Ensure that the catalog data you send to Instacart is complete and matches the catalog you use on your ecommerce site, with the exception of prohibited products.
- Send new products to Instacart 3 to 5 days in advance of offering them on your ecommerce site. This gives Instacart some lead time to create the product.
- Avoid reusing UPCs for multiple items because it can cause confusion during fulfillment.
- Ensure consistency in the units of measure that are used for the product data in your catalog. For example, identify weights and sizes either in the imperial system or the metric system ⏤ not both. You can convert to the other measurement system for display purposes on your site.
- Send your catalog updates daily to ensure that Instacart remains synchronized with your stores' product pricing and availability.
- Audit your departments and aisles regularly to ensure that all products are assigned to visible and active departments. Products that are not visible and active can result in Item not found errors during cart validation. These errors might prevent your site from retrieving service options or creating an order.