Instacart puts shoppable videos right in the grocery app

Instacart just rolled out a vertical video feed where you can tap a product and add it straight to your cart without leaving the video. Advertisers — more than 1,000 so far — can put their clips right next to the regular product listings. The feed is designed for the phone, so it feels like scrolling TikTok but for groceries.

The move puts Instacart in direct competition with Walmart+, Target, and other grocery apps that are building their own video shopping experiences. Vertical video is becoming the default way people browse products on their phones, and Instacart wants you to discover things while you're already thinking about what to cook.

Why this matters for us: It means more ads and sponsored videos in the app where we shop for groceries. If we're scrolling for dinner ideas anyway, we might as well tap and buy — but it also means the ads will be harder to ignore.