Instacart Orders, Revenues Climb as Company Prepares IPO

Instacart has seen an increase in revenues and orders in the second quarter, with shoppers continuing to embrace online grocery delivery as the company prepares to go public.

That’s according to a Monday (Aug. 22) report from The Wall Street Journal, which notes that Instacart is rare among Silicon Valley firms going public during an ongoing initial public offering (IPO) drought.

Investors told the Journal that revenue for Instacart for the three months ended in June rose 39% from the same period last year to $621 million, the highest quarterly revenue in the company’s history

That growth was fueled by a rise in the number of orders placed on the app, which increased 25% year-over-year to more than 60 million, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Read more: Grocery Roundup: Instacart Launches Cross-Retailer Ordering

Instacart was also helped this quarter by a rise in new consumer price plans including lower-cost scheduled delivery and more expensive quicker delivery options, along with lower average fulfillment costs by grouping individual orders.

Earlier this month, the company launched OrderUp, a feature that lets customers get items from different retailers in one order with only the delivery and service fees that would accompany a single-retailer purchase.

As PYMNTS noted, Instacart is leveraging this debut to boost cross-selling with targeted recommendations after customers have made their purchase while driving adoption of the feature. In a blog post, the company said that, for a limited time, shoppers would get “post-checkout recommendations” from local merchants across categories including “alcohol, beauty, pets, electronics, office, home goods, and more,” so that they can retroactively take advantage of the feature.

Instacart order volume rose 21% in the second quarter from the same time in 2021 to $7.1 billion, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. That marks a significant increase from the first quarter when order volume climbed 10% year over year.

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