Query grocery delivery slot availability honestly, given that most retailers don't expose a public slot-booking API and Instacart Connect is the main documented exception
domain: docs.instacart.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Confirm scope: general grocery retailers (e.g., large chains running their own delivery) typically do not publish a public API for browsing or reserving delivery time slots — this is usually retailer-internal or unavailable to third parties
For retailers on Instacart, use the Instacart Connect Fulfillment API's time-window objects surfaced during order/cart creation rather than expecting a standalone 'list available slots' endpoint you can query independently of building an order
Treat returned fulfillment time windows as perishable — they can be claimed by other shoppers, so re-request current windows close to the point of order submission rather than caching them
Handle the case where a previously offered time window is no longer available at submission time by re-fetching and re-offering fresh windows to the customer rather than failing silently
Do not assume slot-availability patterns from Instacart Connect generalize to other grocery platforms — verify per-retailer/per-platform before reusing the same integration logic elsewhere
Known gotchas
Absence of a public slot API for most grocers is the norm, not a gap in your research — don't spend integration budget hunting for one that doesn't exist for a given retailer
Fulfillment time windows are tied to cart/order context, not a standalone browsing catalog, so you generally can't show 'available slots' to a user before they've built a cart
Slot expiration mid-checkout is a real failure mode; production integrations need a re-offer flow, not just an error message, when a window disappears between display and submission
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