4 ms·

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

56 points by apoorvamehta 14y ago

nhirji 14y ago
I checked out the InstaCart source code because I had a hunch it was built with Bootstrap. The header comments were hilarious. "Yes, it's Bootstrap. Don't like it? Join us and fix it. Email jobs@instacart.com " Maybe I will email jobs@instacart.com ...
izak30 14y ago
Unrelated: Can I instacart w/o facebook? <strike>Can I instacart w/o an iPhone? (seems to have a web interface)</strike> I'm in Palo Alto, so I fit the first requirement on space. I also have a desire to have this service and pay them my dollars occasionally. Edit: Just realized that I missed the point of this post.
- cocoflunchy 14y ago
  I guess you can: https://www.instacart.com/store https://www.instacart.com/store
  - izak30 14y ago
    That page presents me with my zip, which gets me through the first barrier, the second is "sign up with facebook"
    - apoorvamehta 14y ago
      We are going to be adding e-mail sign on shortly.
      - izak30 14y ago
        Great! Looking forward to it
ctide 14y ago
The iPhone app is actually why I never use this. It's too cumbersome to put together an order. It took my girlfriend and I just as long to find everything I wanted (no efficient way to browse) and put together the order as it would have taken us to just go to Safeway ourselves.
- apoorvamehta 14y ago
  exactly why we launched the web version :)
jhuckestein 14y ago
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 checkout button. Good work!
- HorizonXP 14y ago
  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!
tke248 14y ago
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
- HorizonXP 14y ago
  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.
  - robryan 14y ago
    Not if they did a partnership with a store to match line item data back to products.
bradgessler 14y ago
Did Instacart stop with the iPhone notification SPAM?
sraj 14y ago
There's no way to browse the products available without logging in. Maybe I'm missing something?

56 points by apoorvamehta 14y ago

I checked out the InstaCart source code because I had a hunch it was built with Bootstrap. The header comments were hilarious. "Yes, it's Bootstrap. Don't like it? Join us and fix it. Email jobs@instacart.com " Maybe I will email jobs@instacart.com ...

izak30 14y ago

Unrelated: Can I instacart w/o facebook? <strike>Can I instacart w/o an iPhone? (seems to have a web interface)</strike> I'm in Palo Alto, so I fit the first requirement on space. I also have a desire to have this service and pay them my dollars occasionally. Edit: Just realized that I missed the point of this post.

cocoflunchy 14y ago
I guess you can: https://www.instacart.com/store https://www.instacart.com/store
- izak30 14y ago
  That page presents me with my zip, which gets me through the first barrier, the second is "sign up with facebook"
  - apoorvamehta 14y ago
    We are going to be adding e-mail sign on shortly.
    - izak30 14y ago
      Great! Looking forward to it

ctide 14y ago

The iPhone app is actually why I never use this. It's too cumbersome to put together an order. It took my girlfriend and I just as long to find everything I wanted (no efficient way to browse) and put together the order as it would have taken us to just go to Safeway ourselves.

apoorvamehta 14y ago
exactly why we launched the web version :)

jhuckestein 14y ago

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 checkout button. Good work!

HorizonXP 14y ago
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!

tke248 14y ago

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

HorizonXP 14y ago
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.
- robryan 14y ago
  Not if they did a partnership with a store to match line item data back to products.

bradgessler 14y ago

Did Instacart stop with the iPhone notification SPAM?

sraj 14y ago

There's no way to browse the products available without logging in. Maybe I'm missing something?