Instacart’s latest ecommerce platform – Fizz – is making occasion- and group-based snacking and drinking a snap for Gen Z, while providing CPG companies a way to connect with this shopper cohort with incentivized buying and sponsored programs.
Fizz is “built on top of and benefits from Instacart’s existing tech platform” but comes with unique features that makes hosting parties and special occasions easier, Danna Weintraub, principal product manager at Instacart, explained. The app is available on iOS and Android for consumers 21 years and up.
To get started, consumers create a party cart inside Fizz and invite other people to add snacks and beverages to a communal shopping cart, Weintraub explained. Shoppers then pay for the items that they put into the cart – eliminating bill-splitting headaches – with delivery costing $5 for the entire order, she noted.
Instacart designed Fizz to tap into younger consumers’ occasion-based snacking and drinking occasions – whether it is hosting a party, celebrating a birthday , pre-gaming an event or watching a favorite program together – Weintraub said.
Most Gen Z and Millennial consumers (78%) said that they snacked more in 2024, compared to the previous year, according to Mondelez’s State of Snacking report. Additionally, 68% of Gen Zers said they snack as a way to bond with one another, the report added.
“We knew that Instacart is really good at the weekly grocery shop, and through this existing foundation, we realized that we are actually uniquely positioned to solve what we learned to be a massively underserved use case, which is group ordering. And we learned that this is particularly more important for the younger 21-plus demographic, who we learned tend to be very occasion driven,” she elaborated.
‘Spend on drinks, save on snacks’ with Snack Bucks
Fizz incentivizes consumers through a Snack Bucks program that allows shoppers to “spend on drinks, save on snacks,” allowing them to redeem reward dollars for snacks, Weintraub explained. Additionally, CPG brands can boost engagement to specific rewards and products through sponsored programs.
“Throughout the shopping experience, you will find items that you can earn Snack Bucks for a future order just by purchasing them. So, this was one of the ways we wanted to make Fizz more fun, simple and mostly affordable for our customers. It is also a great way to showcase all of our brands,” she elaborated.
Marketing to Gen Z and Alpha
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‘Part of the magic of this product is word of mouth’
Instacart is raising awareness of Fizz through a partnership integration with online invitation and reservation app Partiful and social media campaigns, Weintraub said.
“Part of the magic of this product is word of mouth. So, through group ordering, you invite friends, those friends invite other friends, and through word of mouth, we are able to create this flywheel of sorts that spreads the word organically,” she elaborated.
Instacart is working on its next set of Fizz features as part of a broader roadmap, with a specific focus on creating more personalized experiences and more host options to make event planning easier, Weintraub said.
“Once we actually get the group into the cart, how do we show them the right merchandising and selection of what they might want to see for that particular party? How do we help them plan together, to remove the coordination outside of the app so it is all in one place,” she added.
