Shoppable Recipe? Instacart and TikTok, You Amaze Me
Hello, everyone! May I ask a few questions here? How many of you know how to cook? How many of you started to cook during the pandemic? How many of you love to watch cooking tutorials?
My answer is Yes, Yes, and Yes.
I still remember that it was the spring break of 2020, I was a junior year student of Syracuse University, and the school announced that the campus would not open after spring break because of COVID-19. Since that time, My roommate and I have started to quarantine, and one of the most challenging problems for us is where to eat?! None of us is a master of cooking, so we begin to learn how to cook and buy groceries from Instacart. My roommate even started to study baking to kill boredom. It was also the time I fell in love with watching cooking videos on TikTok and Youtube, and the habit lasted until now. So, I became a cook (well, at least I haven’t used food delivery since graduate school) from cooking rookie (used two hours to cook one dish, and the kitchen is a disaster…).
However, I still have a few difficulties while preparing materials for cooking. Usually, I will collect the recipes I love while browsing on TikTok and take notes of all the materials I need. However, whenever I was confidently entering grocery stores to pick up materials, I always stuck in the aisle because I could not figure out the difference between all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, bread flour, etc. Therefore, I started to search for articles and videos that explained the difference and rewatched the TikTok tutorials again and again in the middle of the aisle. Or, I just could not locate the products in such a big grocery store!
As a result, when I see Instacart adds shoppable recipe tools to TikTok or Hearst publications and other websites such as Delish, The Pioneer Woman, etc. I was EXCITING. That is genius and precisely solves the problems I mentioned above. This third-party integration tool allows food creators in TikTok to link Instacart grocery lists into their video content. Then, when consumers click the “Shop with Instacart” button, it takes you right to the Instacart, and the shopping cart is full of the materials you need to cook that delicious dish. The shoppable recipe uses AI technology to monitor the store’s in-stock items and the available shopper for delivery.
For consumers, the shoppable recipe greatly reduces the time-waste and hesitation in the grocery store/app and further excites the desire to create food. Furthermore, it enables a deeper engagement level with their audiences for food creators on the platforms. Although currently, only a few selected creators can use this feature, soon will be available for more.
More Inspirations:
After seeing the news, while I was amazed about how convenient this third-party integration tool is, I couldn’t help thinking about other integration possibilities.
- #BookTok: BookTok is a sub-community of TikTok that centers on using video to share interesting books and literature, which drives sales of the book industry. It is an excellent opportunity for the popular book retailers in the US, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million, to collaborate with TikTok and add a shoppable book tool. From my personal experience, I always have the urge to purchase the book while watching the video, but I often just put it into my collection first and consider purchasing later. Honestly, most of the time, I will forget. However, if the shoppable tool is added to TikTok, it increases the possibility of instant purchase. Here is an example of BookTok.
- Beauty industry: Every year, when the sales of Sephora are coming, lots of creators on Youtube and TikTok are creating videos to introduce their top xx favorite cosmetic items. As a beauty lover, I am interested to purchase all their recommended products. Therefore, if there is a shoppable beauty button, I can quickly add the creator’s favorite list into my shopping cart without the long searching and adding process at Sephora.com.
There are lots of possibilities as well for the fashion industry (with SSENSE or FARFETCH) or the pet industry (with Chewy), and the list goes on and on.
Those third-party integrations can be very convenient and shorten the purchase decision time. In addition, this innovative way makes the brand stand out!
In my opinion, Instacart now is beyond a grocery app and has become the facilitator for the process of creating delicacies.
