Dive Brief:

• Shipt announced on Thursday a new feature that allows shoppers to sort products according to nearly 20 dietary labels and save their preferences.
• The Target-owned delivery company, which partners with more than 100 grocers, lets customers choose from options like the Keto and Atkins diets, vegan and vegetarian, along with wellness options like low-sodium, sugar-free and organic. The new feature also boosts tagged items in search results to match shoppers’ preferences. 
• The announcement comes at a time when retailers and e-commerce providers are looking to make it easier for both customers to build online baskets and for workers to make appropriate substitutions.

Dive Insight:

Adding the dietary preferences feature furthers the efforts by Shipt and other companies to expand personalization options, simplify the discovery process and to more closely match up e-commerce shopping with in-store choices.

The new feature helps customers sift through the more than 400,000 products available via Shipt to find those matching their preferences. In the announcement, Shipt cited a Food Industry Association trends report from 2019 noting that 82% of shoppers are actively seeking out specific diet and health labels. 

Saving selections aims to save shoppers time and help them build baskets. The preferences can get changed at any time, Shipt noted. 

Workers, meanwhile, can see customers' selected preference, which they can use when finding appropriate substitutions. “By strengthening the shopper-to-customer connection, shoppers can more closely shop for a customer like they would shop for themselves,” Shipt said in the announcement. 

While Shipt said it tries to accommodate every dietary need offered, the company says it’s not liable for allergy-related concerns, like if a gluten-free grocery order comes into contact with gluten. 

The new offering builds on Shipt's personalization efforts. Last month, the company unveiled a feature that lets workers type in their chosen name "for those who would rather go by a nickname, married name, or chosen name to shop as their most authentic self." 

Shipt said it's the first nationwide grocery delivery service to offer a saved feature for dietary preferences, helping distinguish it from competitors like Instacart, DoorDash and Uber.