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Instacart (YC S12) launches website to complement its grocery delivery app

pandodaily.com

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Re: Instacart (YC S12) launches website to complement its grocery delivery app

#13

Post by HorizonXP »

DavidD wrote: post #11

I haven't tried the service since I'm not in the coverage area but it would be nice if you could take a pic of a grocery reciept and let it automatically import an order

That's a difficult problem to solve. Nevermind the OCR issues surrounding different store's receipts, the line item descriptions are so varied and atrocious, it would be a very large undertaking to match them against Instacart's existing product database.

Good idea, just hard to execute, and I'm not sure it would have a sufficient payoff to be worth it.

Re: Instacart (YC S12) launches website to complement its grocery delivery app

#14

Post by HorizonXP »

jhuckestein wrote: post #8

Finally! I've had half-finished Instacart orders sitting on my phone, just because I was too lazy to pick all the items from the mobile interface and kept losing track of what I still needed (don't judge me!). I just tried the site and ordered my weekly groceries within a few minutes. It works great and has a refreshingly small amount of cruft. Just a searchable, categorized list of items, a shopping cart and a check…

First thing I noticed when I logged in is that it carried over my shopping cart from my phone. Fantastic integration, makes a lot of sense!

Re: Instacart (YC S12) launches website to complement its grocery delivery app

#15

Post by robryan »

HorizonXP wrote: post #13
DavidD wrote: post #11

I haven't tried the service since I'm not in the coverage area but it would be nice if you could take a pic of a grocery reciept and let it automatically import an order

That's a difficult problem to solve. Nevermind the OCR issues surrounding different store's receipts, the line item descriptions are so varied and atrocious, it would be a very large undertaking to match them against Instacart's existing product database. Good idea, just hard to execute, and I'm not sure it would have a sufficient payoff to be worth it.

Not if they did a partnership with a store to match line item data back to products.
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