Instacart has a new benefit for its Instacart+ membership program that echoes what membership programs from Walmart and Amazon offer.
The grocery technology company announced Wednesday a partnership with NBCUniversal-owned video streaming service Peacock that offers Instacart+ members in the U.S. access to more than 80,000 hours of content through Peacock Premium for free. This is Instacart’s first video streaming deal.
“With TV viewing and grocery delivery at their peak during the holiday season, it’s the perfect time to launch this partnership and lean into big moments across NBCUniversal,” Annie Luo, executive vice president and head of global partnerships and strategic development at Peacock, said in a statement.
Instacart noted in the announcement that it’s already been a “regular advertiser” across Peacock and the NBCU portfolio.
The Peacock partnership is the latest move by Instacart to add value to its subscription program, which the company launched in June 2022 to replace Instacart Express. At the time of the subscription refresh, Instacart rolled out new benefits such as family shopping features like shared carts and accounts.
Instacart+ includes unlimited free delivery on orders over $35, lower service fees and credit back on eligible pickup orders, among other benefits. As of June 30, Instacart+ had over 5.1 million members, excluding free trial members, according to its prospectus filed in September with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of going public.
Instacart said in that filing that growing Instacart+ is one of its growth strategies and that the company plans to keep making investments in the membership program.
“Instacart+ members order more frequently and have higher average order values, despite lower customer fees, and typically develop a more habitual and sticky behavior on Instacart over time,” the company said in the filing.
Instacart CFO Nick Giovanni told investors in early November that Instacart+ accounts for “more than half of the activity on our platform.”
At the end of 2022, Instacart started offering Instacart+ at a discount of $4.99 per month for a year-long subscription — half off the regular cost — to SNAP participants. Walmart and Amazon followed about six months later, similarly rolling out a half-price membership option for people receiving government assistance.
The streaming service tie-up follows in the footsteps of Walmart’s Paramount+ partnership, which kicked off last spring, and Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service for Prime members.
Adding streaming services is one way that Instacart is looking to stand out as it vies with competitors for consumers’ subscription dollars. Earlier this year, Shipt revamped the member dashboard for its membership program to allow for more personalization and make it easier for members to access their benefits, lifetime savings, exclusive offers and preferred in-store shoppers.
