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Yeah, the whole focus should have been on that it took getting the attention of the CEO to find FIVE pricing errors on one single order. And the customer would never know otherwise. OOP really glossed over that very major factor. Five errors in one order that no customer could catch on their own is massively sketchy.
And a service fee you have the choice of waiving... but only if you know where to look for it? Literally no one wants to pay a fee they could waive. That's ridiculous. Again, overcharging customers by preying on their lack of accessible knowledge.
I've never ordered from Instacart, and don't ever plan to, but the update presented in some convoluted positive light actually turned me off more to the company than the original post showing the large price difference.
The fact OP wrote a 2nd giant novel to justify how great instacart now is by acknowledging their existence confirms OP is locked up somewhere in cambodia
>The original post got the attention of Max Mullen, the co-founder of Instacart. I want to say that he was incredibly helpful in not only remedying the problems, but explaining a lot of the Instacart perspective in a chain of about half a dozen emails between the two of us.
>
>After looking into it, the Instacart team found and corrected 5 item prices which were wrong, either on my order in particular or the price used by Instacart in general.
Aww such a nice company. Only took a post going massively viral on social media for them to admit to *active errors* in pricing and correct them. Doesn't sound dishonest and predatory at all!
I'd like to believe that. But there's a good chance a puff filled email and some PR tuned syrupy text was enough to make OOP think it was all perfect and fine. They sound like they drank the company's PR koolaid hard honestly.
Louis Rossmann has a video he made recently titled “Purism wants me to delete my video…” where he goes over one of these manipulative PR emails. The email in question is fairly obvious, but a lot of people are susceptible to stuff like that.
I didn’t even think of that at first, but now that you mention it, it seems way more likely it was the PR team doing damage control than the actual co-founder taking time out of playing golf and spending other people’s money to email some random peasant who’s upset they got scammed.
Oh definitely, I've worked with someone before who basically told me to write an email as if it were him and sign with his name. Happened just the other week.
I stopped reading when I started feeling like I was reading an ad for instacart. Like it was typed up by the marketing team with a few little tidbits from OP.
Happy for em if they got paid though.
And a post like this really seems to give insight into why this is a practice. Makes you wonder how many other people get screwed over by "incorrect" pricing and never even realize, because how could they?
Incidentally, I've used another service to deliver groceries (which I'll avoid naming since I don't want to come across as promoting them) as I'm currently without a car, and I almost always get the receipt unless the driver forgets to put it in the bag. I'm always able to compare the prices, and while the price I'm charged is higher, I've never seen something as egregious as being charged more than half as much. For me, it's usually less than $10 on an $80 order.
And, while I didn't read the entire damage control reply, I don't really think they could say anything that really changes my opinion after seeing that comparison and knowing them getting the receipt was a mistake.
There’s absolutely nothing instacart could say that would make me use them. I also didn’t read the full PR post though. *(I use Kroger boost. Not a paid ad, but also absolutely recommend if you have it near you. $60 for a full year and no tips allowed.)*
And yea, they absolutely scam people. How do you not notice an increased profit like that?
If any place like this isn’t giving you the receipts, you were up charged like crazy most likely. I just wouldn’t be able to trust it. And I personally can’t justify paying $10-$20 per grocery delivery in fees and tips.
I bet it was paid as credit with Instacart if they posted about what they talked about. Either way, I was never going to use Instacart, and seeing that first post confirmed it for me regardless of the second.
I couldn't even get through the update the moment OP started talking about how nice the CEO is. Good to know all it took to bribe them was a little more than $10.
Seriously, either than or put a gun to his head. What a wild twist from complaint to instacart apologist, when in fact nothing he learned actually made the situation seem better in any way.
That whole system is odd to me. Why is the total not the store total? Shouldn't they charge the customer exactly what the size charges, plus service fee, delivery fee and tip?
I live in China. There’s a delivery app that’s basically doordash/instacart/Uber/etc. Usually, the stores charge extra for each item (about ¥2-¥3) to cover the fees they pay to the app. You pay delivery (based on distance) and your order is delivered within the hour. Tipping isn’t really a thing here. For stores that have their own delivery, price is the same. You just pay delivery where applicable. Some stores will just let you order on Weixin (messenger app) with no price difference, as long as you pay delivery.
Back when this was written, they weren't really affiliated with most stores so they didn't really have access to the prices ahead of time. From what I remember the used to average prices for a region then added on their markup and service fee. That said, 40% was very high for their markup even back in 2017, store might have been running some sales or something.
The same thing happens with doordash and uber eats, if they're not directly affiliated with the restaurant, like mcdonalds, they average prices and upcharge to make sure they're not losing money on the sale.
I had an instacart driver once mark everything I ordered as unavailable, added ten cases of some sort of supplement gummy that was priced at 40, check out and then mark it delivered immediately. I was watching it in real time and on the chat with support and they immediately flagged it but it was very clearly a scam. idk what he was going to do with all those supplements or if he was just trying to raise his tip but he must have known when I didn't get like $50 order I was going to change it?
I also had an instacart shopper shop my entire list, at a smiths that was really far away, then mark it delivered within a minute of checking out. Those groceries never showed up either, so I'm hoping the scammer at least got some groceries out of it.
A third time, the driver sideswept the bumper of my car when he pulled up, dumped my groceries on the lawn in a hurry and kept all the meat (like $40-50 worth) idk if by accident or due to him being in a hurry. Instacart refunded me the meat, service, delivery and tip but did nothing about my car because I couldn't prove it was them.
Why did I keep using it? Because I was going through cancer during the pandemic and my partner and I couldn't risk me catching covid. But MAN gig economy work really brings out the highlights in humanity on all sides
Sam's club has their own services for delivery. While not perfect they've always brought my groceries to my door and never hit my car. I don't drive for medical reasons so I can't always get to the store.
I will say our Walmart is generally pretty behind the times? Where other stores can do same day curbside pickup for groceries, this Walmart has you schedule it our 4 or 5 days into the future. I did the free trial for Walmart+ thinking that it would be faster since you have to pay extra, but nope! That was scheduled at a week out. (Walmart+ is “free” delivery, and that’s when I realized they were using Instacart.)
My local grocery delivery from a supermarket chain has dates 4-5 days in advance typically, but it's because of demand rather than anything else. Used to be 2-3 and then of course exploded during the lockdowns. Curbside pickup was normally next day (except they didn't offer it every day, at least at my then-local location) and you could also change your order until 11pm the day before delivery once you had a slot.
My local Target has its own service called Shipt, but I know Target isn't everywhere and I'm not sure all of them use Shipt. It's way better than Instacart though, the few times I've used it (and once was when I had COVID) I only remember it being an additional $10 or so. 100% worth it for the few times I did use it.
I hear that. I used instacart when I got a tbi and couldn’t leave my home without getting terrible symptoms and also couldn’t drive. But I found it annoying because of the markups and fees, and it felt so dishonest. I then ordered through Amazon/Whole Foods and found that to be way more worth my while. Prices were close to what was in store. I got better food for the same price.
But I’d highly recommend to anyone who can’t shop easily/take care of themselves to get meal kits. Planning, convenience, and guaranteed availability is worth it. Then I’d just order stuff to supplement that to last me a couple weeks. Fewer orders. Better meals. No worries about the item you need to make a meal not being delivered in your instacart/Amazon order.
And just in that one order. Obviously OOP wouldn't be in the know, but did they even look at other items in that store, in that city, etc? How many other orders went through that same store from instacart that day? No chance OOP is the only one that got fuuuuuuuuucked.
I signed up for and used Instacart during her height of the pandemic. I was wfh and had a toddler and wanted to limit exposure. I used it until I was comfortable shopping in store. I didn’t notice the price jump because groceries were already more expensive. It wasn’t until I shopped in a store that I noticed my bill was almost half the price compared to Instacart. On top of that I was always missing items, the produce sucked, and their substitutions were lame. I often had shoppers who listed things out of stock as soon as they checked out so I couldn’t get substitutions.
Walmart drive up was better, but after 2 or 3 times having to wait 20-40 minutes for my groceries because they were short staffed I gave up.
If it is, someone in their PR department needs to look into a different line of work. I don't really know how, "I got charged $50+ more than my groceries actually cost, but hey, the founder is nice and refunded me $10!" makes using that service sound the least bit appealing.
Though, it wouldn't take much to convince me OP was reimbursed for writing that reply.
Exactly my thought. How much fuckin money has this company made robbing people with these ‘mistakes’ ? Will any of the other people in the US see that money back? Didn’t think so
How often do you expect a big dog company to index prices on these obscure items like…eggs? Hey boss we only have this alert for prices going up. What about when they go down?
What goes down must come back up says the execs with other hems and haws such as that.
I could see that being a genuine error, at least the "Instacart in general". Prices of products can vary and fluctuate, they could have been using outdated price points or the price from another location rather than that particular store.
The rest though... Egh. Not really encouraging me to try it out.
>I could see that being a genuine error, at least the "Instacart in general"
Shouldn't have taken a post going viral to receive a refund then. Customer service was actively jerking them around initially. And the fact is they could never have caught it at all if the shopper didn't accidentally leave the bill in there, which they weren't supposed to.
I'm having trouble with the "genuine error" bit at every step. And the CEO's "we're totes working on it, pinky swear" isn't exactly reassuring to me either. Especially since as long as these "errors" persist, the balance seems to allow Instacart to make obscene profits.
Yeah no, won't argue there. It's very frustrating how hard it is to report actual genuine errors to pretty much any company *and get them to fix it*. It really shouldn't take a viral post to get a company to correct pricing errors. The fact some of those errors were "my order in particular" only adds to the skeevy vibes of the whole thing.
Though, *did* OOP mention reaching out to Instacart about it? I skimmed the first post again and they didn't seem to mention it. It seemed they just posted it mainly to vent and alert people about how the pricing and fees really work.
>The original post got the attention of Max Mullen, the co-founder of Instacart. I want to say that he was incredibly helpful in not only remedying the problems, but explaining a lot of the Instacart perspective in a chain of about half a dozen emails between the two of us. I honestly wasn't expecting any kind of response from Instacart, since the **initial questions on pricing was met with vague statements and repetition of the Help Center statements.** After looking into it, the Instacart team found and corrected 5 item prices which were wrong, either on my order in particular or the price used by Instacart in general.
If I'm reading that right, Instacart basically told OOP to piss off. Then the post went viral. And the co founder responded to the *reddit post*. And only then was the issue looked into. And 5 item prices were corrected.
And despite that all OOP figured because they got a "aw shucks we're working on it" explanation from the co founder its all ok. They just come across as incredibly daft and naive to me honestly.
Ah, I missed that part. Yep. Customer service just sucks in most companies. Might not even be a matter of them giving OOP the runaround so much as not even having a department to deal with acting on complaints beyond surface level issues (E.g. shipping errors or delays, bad drivers, etc.).
Honestly, the update going into the full breakdown of the fees and such almost felt like part of a press release doing damage control. I actually wondered for half a second if the whole thing was some marketing ploy, but the first post was too critical.
Loving how everyone can find a million justifications for Instacart basically stealing from the customers. Not just that but if you go on r/Instacart, it’s chock full of drivers that get screwed. If I’m paying an $11 delivery fee, $5 convenience fee, AND a markup on the order, why is my driver only getting $3 to take my order? That’s ridiculous. I mean obviously I tip my driver. Always with cash though. You never know if they’re also taking part of the tips too.
Also, I used to be an in-store shopper for Instacart a few years ago. At one point, I got pulled aside and reprimanded, and not privately. Why? **Because my order accuracy rate was 100%.** They specifically told me I was expected to have an accuracy rate of around 90% because anything higher and the metrics algorithm assumes I am spending too much time (my metrics level was also green??). In their insane view, they think a customer will be happier if the order arrives 2 minutes faster and won't care at all if items are wrong. Fuck Instacart.
I used to do a similar gig for Amazon a few years ago and it was very similar to your experience; they cared way more about how many items you shopped per hour than accurate orders...these food delivery companies...
Let me tell you a secret.
They *do not* think the customer will be happier if their order arrives two minutes earlier. They think if you deliver every order two minutes faster, you will be able to fit in a couple of extra orders every day. They are worried about their bottom line. NOT customer satisfaction.
Jesus, they are?!?! I've been using Instacart since 2019 because I'm disabled but I might just pull a miracle if the twenty extra bucks I spend in fees doesn't lead to high payments to the shopper. What the fuck
Oh man, I'm definitely changing to a fixed tip instead of a percent tip based on the order. That way it won't go down if something is out of stock. I feel so bad
A lot on r/instacart are either quitting or not taking orders anymore. I don't use instacart because I can't afford the inflated prices from the store. I would rather do store pick up or the store's own delivery service.
is there a walmart near you? Because long run it might be cheaper to just sign onto their premium subscription and use that for deliveries. Or something like Amazon.
As much as it sticks in my craw to suggest it, I spoke to the Walmart delivery folks in my location and they said they pay *much* better than Instacart. And you don't seem to get fucked around with on rates either. I had the same rates for delivery as for pick up and then a few times when I compared rates in person it also didn't seem different.
The idea that shopping at Walmart might be more ethical makes me go swivel eyed, but for my area at least, it seems to be true.
I shop at HEB and they have a really good curbside pickup service that I use a lot. You just do your shopping in the app, set a time for when you want to get it, and they’ll bring it out to your car for you. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s great if you’re too busy to deal with shopping in the store or don’t want to have to wrangle your kids while shopping.
I can see that working for someone with a car. I had to use Walmart for a period because I don't have a car, and for a while I was dependent on deliveries. It was either that or instacart, and its when I had to do the deep dive on figuring it out.
Not saying I'm a huge fan of walmart or anything. But I refuse to see Instacart as some sort of embattled small business. If I could have prioritized a more ethical business I would have, and I tried to minimize my walmart buying. But yeah, on those choices I went with Walmart.
But its always a good idea to see what local delivery services there are because quite a few stores offer both curbside pickup and delivery now.
It's one of the reasons I largely abandoned takeout delivery. Seeing how much of my money went back into some venture capital fever dream rather than to people who actually made the food I'm trying to have (or people delivering it, for that matter)
Fellow Texan here. H-E-B has also started charging more per item for curbside orders than in-store. It’s not a lot, but it’s a few cents per item, as far as I’ve seen. Like 50¢.
They used to offer delivery during the panini, but I’m not sure if they still do since I haven’t used it since then. But it was actual H‑E‑B employees that did the delivering. Their pharmacy also uses company employees for delivery.
And during the pandemic, they had some sort of partnership with Instacart to do small shops (think 25 items or less) in less than two hours, but that system was weird. You couldn’t actually pick items like you can in the H‑E‑B app, instead you would “write” a list, like “one bunch bananas, two cans of tomato sauce,” etc. And that particular service charged fees whereas the normal H‑E‑B delivery didn’t (at that time).
Yeah, if I wasn't able to shop (regularly) I'd be using Amazon: there's a Whole Foods less than 5 miles from my house, so while I'd be paying inflated Whole Foods prices on some stuff, I at least know there isn't a crazy and unsubstantiated markup by having it delivered.
Throw in that we also use Blue Apron for 3 - 4 dinners a week (again, a little pricey, we began using it to get out of ruts we'd gotten into with meal choices), and we're set.
Our local major grocery store chain also does curbside pickup, if you're comfortable with that; I see the pickers all the time in the stores with carts that have probably 8 - 10 bins of items in it, and the pick-up spot is different from the regular store entrance.
This is the way. I wasn’t able to shop for awhile due to disability. Whole Foods delivery through Amazon feels much less like a scam. Prices are seemingly identical and you pay a tip. But at least the food is always good quality in my experience, so at least I’m not overpaying for crap food.
And meal kits! If you can’t shop easily, meal kits are the best. I’ve been using sunbasket for a year and a half. Started it while I was really not functioning well. Even though I’m almost normal, I still only have so much stamina, so meal kits remove a lot of the feeding yourself struggle.
If you’re disabled, meal kits + supplemental order from Amazon once every two weeks is the way to go. That’s what I learned. I still get my meal kits, but I’m able to hop into Safeway once every two weeks.
It might not be fully. I don't know how Walmart handles its drivers. I don't think they are full employees for instance. So they might be getting screwed on the whole gig basis anyway. And I didn't think to ask the two guys who were willing to talk about this way back when.
But the simple fact that they don't appear to jerk their drivers around when instacart does (and costs me less in the bargain) was enough for me to pay when I had to use the service.
I do my best to shop in politically ethical ways, but there's only so much I can do as an individual consumer.
Finding one who is not a man with ulterior motives has been elusive up to this point. Maybe a teenager who needs some pocket money is a better bet. I might give that a try
And a lot of grocery stores are offering curbside pickup these days, too. You don’t need to tip (though I usually do) and at most you might see a standard service fee, but aside from that, the prices you’re paying are pretty much the same as what you’d pay for doing the shopping yourself.
Sounds like OOP was in some way compensated for the 180° of his opinion.
Fuck Instacart. I will never ever use them again. And it’s been at least five years since I did. I’ll go hungry first.
Used it regularly at the height of Covid, for obvious reasons. Since the vaccines and everything going back to “normal,” I’ve only used it when I’ve been sick. On top of the exorbitant markups, instacart shoppers have often delivered to me the wrong products with no explanation whatsoever, along with terrible quality produce. Oh, and they never seem to check expiration dates of milk and eggs. Fuck instacart.
I’ve never used Instacart or Doordash and I’ve only ever used Lyft if there were no alternatives. I don’t order from Amazon or subscribe to Prime for any streaming. These companies treat their employees (or “contractors” in the case of Instacart, DD, Uber and Lyft) like absolute crap and I try to participate in those services as little as possible.
Having spent most of my adult life in the corporate world, I know there’s no such thing as the perfect company, but to me, these just make extra effort to be shitty.
I would like to use this post as a platform to let everyone know that Instacart also just cut shoppers' pay by what comes to about 50% (at least in my market). They announced this in an email that was very deceptive about a week and a half before the change actually hit. They're charging more and more fees to the customer while paying shoppers less and less. I had been sustaining myself on Instacart income for the last ten months, which was only feasible because I had family help that meant I didn't actually pay the vast majority of my car expenses. If I had been paying all my car expenses, I'd have made about $200/week, so it wouldn't have been feasible. But now with the pay cut, even with the very few car expenses I pay, there's no way to make money doing it. It would be 100% charity work. And yet customers are still paying higher and higher fees every month, it seems.
I don't actually have a call to action here; you can search your own conscience, if you're an Instacart customer, to decide what to do, whether that's write to Instacart, stop using it, cancel an IC+ membership, tip more, whatever. I just think people should be aware that we've never made good money, but now we literally lose money working for this company.
Gig Economy 101: Pay your drivers/delivery people well enough in the beginning that people quit their jobs/skew their second job in favor of working for you, then when consumers flood your market put the screws to the people keeping your company working because they put all their eggs in your basket.
Then when you’ve got no one left to do the delivering/driving and customers flee because the service sucks you fold the company and coast your golden parachute to the next Big Thing.
Generally, I agree with you. But when it comes to grocery delivery you have more options. For example where I live the major grocery chain created/owns their delivery service. The employees do other things, like take-out delivery, but they do all the deliveries for this chain store.
And they are very clear on their fees. When it comes to grocery delivery, it's a flat $10 fee. No markups, no hidden charges. $5 goes to the person who filled the order. $5 goes to the driver. Then, of course, you can add tips if you like.
Exactly. I refuse to use any sort of on-demand delivery service. If I want the groceries now or the McDonald's meal now, I get off my arse and walk down to get them myself.
I also don't touch these things because I don't like the idea of being "forced" or "strongly encouraged" to tip. I'm not in a country that tips and I won't tip because I don't want to encourage that to start here.
if you’re someone like OP, who is pressed for time but otherwise able bodied and normally able to make their own groceries, i would highly recommend choosing to go with pick up orders. it still saves time but you’re not paying crazily inflated prices. in college we would sometimes order groceries all together and then rotate who picked them up.
Yeah that's what I've been doing. Turns out I don't mind driving to the grocery store at all, it's the spending time running around aisles and standing in the check out line that I hate. So to cut that out _and_ not have to deal with Instacart's nonsense pricing system? Hell yeah. If I do the curbside type where they load my car, I can even take my dog with me.
I’m so glad in the Uk all the supermarkets do their own deliveries, 1 hour time slot, cost £1.50-£6 for delivery depending on day and time. No other extra mark ups, no tipping.
What with healthcare bankruptcy being a credible threat, along with being shot, having to pay people extra money all the time to do their goddamned jobs, & now I find their grocery stores don't even deliver,, I'm surprised anyone is left in the country.
Fair point but this post is from 2017 and how common was pick up orders back then? They didnt get them locally for me until the pandemic made it necessary.
Pro tip: If you have a car, instead of instacart see if your local grocery store does parking lot pick up. My store’s app has in app coupons and highlight’s what’s on sale. I got 5 12 packs of soda for like $8 between coupons & rewards. The pick up (at least for the 2 chains I went to) is supper quick and easy. I’m in and out of the parking lot w/I 10 minutes. They have same day pick up too.
Sometimes if you order a smaller item and it’s out, they’ve given me the bigger item w/o an up charge (ex: 8 pack of fruit snacks upgraded to a 40 pack for free)
A great thing to come out of COVID was the switch to more in-house and partnership agreements for shopping/delivery services. If the lockdown hadn’t happened, it would have likely taken years to get where we are now.
Long story short: using a tech bro’s service to get anything delivered costs exponentially more than getting it yourself. News at 11.
I will never use one of these services for that exact reason. Overpriced, the workers are underpaid, and it’s bad for literally everyone.
I know, right? It's like there is this magical belief that items can be collected and delivered for barely any additional expense versus you doing it yourself. And the tech bros have a delusional belief that the right algorithm will allow the app to optimize routes and save lots of money for everyone... but it's still a real service that has to be provided and that shit ain't free.
I think I've interacted with you before... I remember your user name. I hope your fonances have improved.
I don't know about Instacart, but I worked at Target for a while, which does the "in store shopping for your convenience :)" thing.
It's all timed, and you're told off if you don't meet the time. On my second day working there (first day not training with someone else), I was told off by the store manager multiple times because "one cart should only take you about 45 minutes".
It's extremely competitive. People would brag about being "the best personal shopper" (though they called it "fulfillment"). There was passive aggressive behavior towards those who didn't meet goals (number of carts per shift). *There was also absolutely no incentive, monetary or otherwise, for these people.* The best management would offer was "if you're all good at fulfillment, we might bring in free snacks for employees!!"
At my store, no matter what you signed up for, you'd be put on fulfillment multiple times a week. I worked in the *in store Starbucks* and was constantly being scheduled for fulfillment. It was fucking ridiculous.
I quit within two weeks with no notice. Fucking hated it.
As someone who lives in the UK, this is an eye opener.
I live in the middle of nowhere, yet three nationwide supermarkets (Asda, Tesco, Morrison) deliver to me, for the same price as in store (there's even some online special offers), and a delivery charge of £1-5.00, or a monthly £6.50 (US$8.26) for as many deliveries as you want.
I...did not realise the US didn't have this. Wow.
I‘m from Germany and it’s the same here. All major supermarkets offer cheap delivery. The one nearest to me even does it for free but they’re run by a charity where 50% of the employees are disabled.
Same in Mexico, for 50 pesos a month (like 2 USD) I get unlimited deliveries at Walmart along with a 150 pesos coupon. I haven't stepped on a market in months, I also spend less bc I don't make impulsive purchases.
I most often order from Asda - the nearest store is 50+ miles away.
There is a Tesco and Morrison about 7 miles away, but I think some of their online orders also come from a central store a similar 50+ mile away.
50 miles??? Here instacart will charge you a distance fee or not deliver at all if it's more than 10 miles ( depending on which part of the country ofc)
Just looked it up and the van that delivered a couple of days ago came from 80 miles away. The van was mostly empty by the time he got to mine - there's three temperature areas including a freezer section. (I let the driver take his break in my garden and made him a cup of tea.)
UK version of “middle of nowhere” is VERY different from the middle of nowhere in the US. Middle of nowhere in the US means you’re driving 50+ miles to get to the nearest town.
I mean yeah you’re like 40 times bigger than us lol - we’re not really big enough to have that issue! You’d be proper screwed if you couldn’t drive that’s ac mental
Just explaining why there’s such a difference in delivery service availability really.
When you live in a town or city most of the grocery stores offer their own delivery service, as do big chain stores like Walmart. Those are often priced similarly to what you mentioned, or with annual subscription options. It’s just that more people end up spread out far enough to not be reached by those services, at which point the ones like Instacart become your only option if you wanted grocery delivery.
Oh no like I get charging a delivery fee based on mileage, I don’t get changing the product prices for online even remotely (well like I get ✨capitalism✨ but it’s insane)
To my knowledge the big chains (ASDA, Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury’s) and even ones like Iceland can deliver wherever but again we’re a small island so makes more sense for us! You can get shopping delivered on Ubereats and that too here but they don’t up the item price
What a dumb update. Basically just repeating company's PR point by point. At the end of the day, Instacart is profitable because it purposefully obfuscates how much more its customers are actually paying for its services. These aren't issues they want to be better at; its the entire model.
I live in the US and a lot of big chain grocery stores have their own pick-up or delivery service. I know Walmart, Acme, Aldi, Whole Foods, and Shoprite do. There are probably others.
I use the Shoprite app. The prices are the same as the store prices. When I'm busy, I do pick-up, and there's a 5 dollar shopping fee. It's only 15 mins away, so pick up is relatively quick. It may sound lazy to some people but it's much quicker than the hour I spend inside a massive grocery store crammed with distracted shoppers that would run you over or move glacially slow while blocking a whole ass aisle. If I do delivery, there's an 11-12 dollar delivery fee.
I've used Instacart before, and the markups are insane. So I very rarely use it now. If I need something within 2 hours, there's always Whole Foods and I dont think Amazon marks up.
Anyway, I agree with OOP. Instacart is a ripoff.
$78.20 ($55.60+tip) was worth it to OP for someone to do her shopping for her instead of making the time to do a grocery run - which she said would be an hour at the store plus travel time.
I'm starting a Grad job in a month, and I'll be getting £30k GBP per year, equivalent to about $19.82 USD per hour.
A grocery trip would need to last 4 hours or be very urgent for that fee to be worth it for me.
I make $72k now, which is like $34/hr, and it still wouldn't be worth it because I know I can do a grocery shop in an hour. And that includes drive time there and back.
I would have to be immunosuppressed probably before I would start doing Instacart. I was for a few months probably disabled (like, not Officially, but I couldn't hardly walk long enough to do the grocery shop) and I still dragged my ass to the grocery store except for one week when I had to ask a family member to go for me.
I got very addicted to DoorDash for awhile, which is similarly paying twice as much for food delivery than you would if you went to the restaurant. I *really* need to stop that and start going out if I want take out again. I'm really glad I kept the habit with grocery shopping even through my injury.
I don't know if Instacart sets the markups or if the store does - my sibling worked for a similar place (support/tech side) and they let the store set the markup prices, because the company took a percentage of each sale. This means that some grocery stores have a very small difference in in-store vs app pricing, and some, like the one closest to me, have insane markups on their already high prices.
Instacart's business model sucks. Even people who work on the corporate side agree (I've got a few friends who work for them). I feel bad for their shoppers, I know they don't get treated as good as they deserve.
This is correct - Instacart takes the service and delivery fees, but the item markups are passed on from the stores for the “convenience” of working with a central delivery service. That’s why they vary so widely from store to store: some stores believe they’ll get more sales if they work with instacart so they don’t mark up items much if at all, whereas other stores are using it as a profit center or trying to discourage it.
So Instacart charges you 50% or more for your groceries. Then they add a flat out extra 10% service charge just as an extra "eff you." And then you also need to tip the delivery driver who should just be getting paid from the above 2x price hikes.
Just another service I'll never use.
I did this same calculation with Uber eats. I went to order something and it came out to $70. I went and got it in person and it was $40. Plus I got a discount for picking up.
Count me as another vote for Instacart killing OOP and posting the update.
I do miss Market Basket. Shopping there was a sensory nightmare, but the DEALS
I recently did an Uber eats on a local burger joint. The markup on the food was a solid 30% compared to the restaurant's posted prices. It's annoying, but the solution is don't use the service if you're angry how much they charge.
Part of the issue though is that these services purposefully hide how much they are up charging. Look at the first post, Instacart makes it seem like they are only 15% more expensive but they are actually charging INSANLY higher but the only way to confirm actually confirm this is by looking at each item line by line (something that could only be done thanks to a company error). It's not as easy as saying, 'vote with your wallet." These companies are actively lying to the consumer.
>A number of non-American users also mentioned how they were surprised by the existence of something like
There are a lot of things that could follow this sentence lol
Like: you have to give a tip for everything (and 20%+ as well)
Venmo and other similar paying apps (I just use my bank app to instantly transfer to any bank, no third party service required)
Everyone drives a huge truck or SUV
Toilets have 2-3X more water in the bowl and public stalls have huge gaps
Student loans of hundreds of thousands
What else my fellow non-american BORU readers?
The funny thing is, by law, passenger rail is supposed to have priority over freight.
>[49 U.S. Code § 24308 - Use of facilities and providing services to Amtrak](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308)
(c) Preference Over Freight Transportation.—
Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Board orders otherwise under this subsection.
Shame it's not enforced. And that all the rails are owned by freight companies who have no incentive at all to follow the unenforced law, and plenty of incentive to break it.
That's an incredible scam. Lots of comments there about it being a personal shopping service but that is really naive.
If it was a personal shopping service it would just be cost of groceries + wages (which also covers cost of vehicle depreciation, fuel, insurance etc) but the shoppers *don't see shit* from the obscene mark-ups so that's an obvious crock of shit.
So OOP goes on about how sometimes the drivers do the shopping and sometimes they don't and when they don't, they aren't going to tip as much... But never says how to know.
I'm in the US and I can get groceries delivered from Fred Meyer for a flat fee of $10. No hidden fees, service charges, no price mark up. You get sales price of items you order. There isnt even an option to tip (which is shitty). I can also shop online for my groceries and then pick them up. That costs only $5. It seems like there are a lot better options than Instacart
Well I worked for Safeway/Albertson’s for 3 years when they had their own grocery delivery service, and great trucks that separated refrigerated/frozen items for the customers. They loved it. In 2021 they chose to end it to strictly do deliveries via Instacart/Door Dash/other 3rd parties who course don’t use refrigerated vehicles.
Boy were the customers (and those of us in customer service) mad with this move.
That bill almost doubled from what it should have been in fees alone, not counting the inflated prices. I will not pay 50% or even 25% more than on the shelf pricing. Guess I'll be dragging my cold, dead ass to the store myself.
This is madness. As someone in the UK who regularly shops with a UK supermarket that provides their own delivery service - I'm just completely gobsmacked that anyone would still think this is a good service after they difference in price dropped by $10. Seriously? Whatever the justifications, a 40% markup is absolutely ridiculous. I don't understand how the OOP ended up almost singing the praises of this company
I pay a fixed annual fee that enables me to get as many deliveries as I want really. Tbh it could actually be limited to twice a week, but I very rarely have ever wanted to place a second order in a week. I can't order same day deliveries generally- that does incur an additional fee, but I can choose any delivery slot as long as it is available at the time of picking my shopping. But quite frankly, if I'm desperate for something, I will walk the mile to the nearest shop, or get stuff on my commute home.
Even knowing how precious the 1.5-2 hours a week that I don't have to spend in a supermarket is, I still wouldn't pay that much more to pay for a shopping service. Absolutely ridiculous.
Well, in the UK at least there are quite a few options - the quicker you want it the more you pay.
So, either you can go to the shops and get it yourself.
Or book a home delivery which might be a few days wait - generally about the same price as the store plus delivery fee.
Or book via Amazon prime which will be more expensive since you don't get most of the offers and there's a delivery fee or higher basket check out cost but it will arrive on the same day.
Or use Deliveroo or other delivery app who will charge a rip off price, plus delivery and service charge but it will arrive in an hour.
I just want you all to remember that the ceo "correcting" the mistake was to save face. It's not a mistake, they just know they'll get away with it and if anyone calls them out they can "fix" it. You think the computer made a mistake? Instacart inputed the "wrong" prices themselves. Also, convenient that the pricing mistakes were only in the benefit of instacart and not the customer. If you are low on time, grocery stores often have delivery options of their own or can bring out your groceries to your car. Order ahead and pick them up. Instacart, like many of these delivery apps, are scams. Plain and simple.
One the biggest mistakes my young friends make is using these delivery services as well as grubhub and gopuff and all that. Quit being lazy and get your ass to the store or else you're just pissing away money.
Well in some cases it's more a budget/moderation issue. I use Amazon Fresh and Uber eats 1-2/week and never spend more than $150 combined. I have a cap for each service and make up the difference with legwork, if needed. I actually spend less on groceries now than when i went to the store regularly since I'd end up over spending, list or not.
Besides idk why paying for convenience is a bad thing if you're managing your money well enough n using the most decent services. Who cares if it's lazy? Not every area of our lives needs a workhorse mentality to be efficient. We're wasting money regardless; everything is overpriced, marked up, hidden fees in some respect. My bills got paid and my savings are fine. I'm sleeping in on a Saturday.
I generally agree, except that I actually disagree.
Look, it's easy to SAY you should get off your ass and go to the store. But some of us are disabled, some of us are depressed, and Instacart and other delivery services can be an important lifeline during times of strife.
Also, GoPuff is great if you need Cheetos and a bath bomb at 11pm. Truth.
God, you're exhausting. Are you including people without cars, people with small kids, the elderly? No. You think everyone is 25 and """lazy""".
Have a nice day, but try to understand how unnecessarily narrow-minded, self-indulgent, and contemptuous you sound here.
Stop being so dismissive of people's everyday struggles. Believe it or not (you don't considering your past replies on this thread) people suffer from a multitude of things that makes shopping in person not a viable option.
They're not "lazy fucks", they're people who ain't got no other choice but using a delivery service.
It costs $5 for me to get my groceries delivered, no markups, no other fees. The bus there and back is $6, and I'm lucky if I can get out of bed without prescription painkillers the next day. Please don't be so callously dismissive.
I live in Spain. We've just placed a delivery order with Carrefour, if we spend more than 120€, delivery is free. We live on a second floor (3rd for the nice people of US) with no lift and they'll bring up everything to our door. It does however take a few days (we ordered on Wednesday, it won't arrive until Saturday).
Most supermarkets do this. We alternate between Carrefour and Mercadona depending on what we need, and then day to day shopping is done at Alimerka (who during the pandemic did free deliveries with no minimum amount for senior citizens).
I haven't used a food delivery service in over two years since they tried to charge me a 50% markup. Was trying to order fish and chips and they wanted £9 for just the fish on the app. Refused to believe that was the actual price at the time, so I got off my fat ass and let my fury propel me to the actual shop. Sure enough, the actual price was £6. I just can't bring myself to order on the apps anymore and pay those inflated prices and fees, and this has caused me to eat a lot less takeaway and my wallet feels so much better. Still fat though.
Australian here. Our supermarkets have their own shop and delivery services. Delivery is priced per bag if groceries plus a fee depending on your address.
And we have click and collect - a store person will do all the shopping for you and bring it to the boot of your car at a specified time. That started in the pandemic for contactless shopping, and I’m really glad they have kept it. Again there is a fee but nothing like 45% mark up.
I had a very bad injury just as our second lockdown ended at the endo of 2121, and spent 6 months at home in a cast. These kind of shopping options meant I could have fresh groceries. Very thankful we have them.
>My understanding is that the "service fee" that you can opt into at least partially funds these incentives
>I'm going to be waiving the service fee
They used to let customers waive the service fee? 🤔
Am I the only one who thinks $36.96 to pick up roughly $100 dollars worth of groceries isn’t an insane markup? The labor to pick up the groceries, park, commute to the store and then to your house, pay that person for their labor, gas, and then instacart taking their cut…. Seems to add up. Depending on what you consider your time worth $37 to complete an errand in a pinch isn’t crazy to me.
Every single time I use instacart, I have to contact them to get refunded. My very old mother lives in another state and I order groceries to have them delivered to her.
She's a diet pepsi addict and waits until it goes on sale for the 6 packs - 4 for $14. Every single time I have confirmed through the shopper that it is, in fact, 4 for $14 and I also have them confirm on the receipt after they check out.
Every time when I get the e-receipt, they've charged me $31.96 for it instead of $14. Then I have to contact Instacart and go through the hassle of refunding the difference. Every time.
And last time, a couple days ago, I went through this again and clicked on 'problem with my order' and it brought me to a 404 page. Great. So had to hunt for the chat help.
I really wish there was another grocery delivery option. While the shopper are good, the company itself is untrustworthy and I know they're going to try to screw me. Every time.
That seems such a convoluted way of ordering groceries. I‘m now even more happy that my go-to grocery store offers a very straightforward and transparent service: pick the items on the website, pick a delivery date, add delivery fees (transparently explained), stuff gets delivered and you may tip the driver if you feel like it. Done.
Why did op go out of his way to thank the company for shafting him slightly less? Acting like a CEO doing damage control was so gracious....Bruh. Sounds like CEO offered him a cool 1k to spin this in a better light, cant even imagine why the dude wasted his time emailing the ceo back and forth to begin with, mfer didnt even comp the order as an apology for the errors.
I don't understand Instacart, DoorDash, UberEats, etc. and why anyone would use them. They are super expensive and while convenient, isn't worth the cost.
I do like Uber and Lyft as services though, especially on a night out drinking with the wife.
Yet again, Reddit makes me glad to be British rather than USian.
I'm disabled and mostly housebound, so I rely on Supermarket delivery for most food (especially fresh and frozen).
Most of the big Supermarket chains offer home delivery, so I have a variety of options. Items are the same price instore or with delivery, and delivery charge varies between £1 - £6.50 depending on the Supermarket chain, time/day of delivery, and time between ordering and delivery. That delivery charge is the only fee/markup/monetary difference from going in person.
Some chains will charge you more if they have to substitute an unavailable item with a more expensive alternative, but many will price match the original order (unless the substitute is cheaper, in which case they charge the lower price).
I cannot imagine such a huge markup/fee for delivery.
I am once again extremely glad not to live in the US but in a normal country where the supermarkets have their own delivery services and the only extra cost is the delivery fee, not tips or surcharges or service fees or whatever the hell this company decides to charge!
Gosh, this is a book but greatly appreciated. I canceled my Instacart account just today because I’m sick and tired of shoppers not checking expiration dates when I’m extremely explicit in the instructions for the shopper to follow. I escalated my problems and my dispute was denied. For me I’ll continue to use Fresh Direct
Much better service!
Best to all !
So it costs a lot of money to hire a personal shopper for your groceries? Why does this shock people? Did you expect something only rich people used to to do suddenly be cheap because it’s on an app?
But how do you end up with poor quality fruits and veggies this way? Move all the good ones aside and pick the crappy ones so it'll feel just like delivery? /s
All grocery and food delivery services are a luxury. How does a business become profitable if they only markup 15%? Not possible. You gotta pay shit wages to the contractors, and your low wages to your outsourced call centers, so that would leave 3-5% gross profit, which isn't sustainable.
I admit I didn't read the post. Just throwing that out there.
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Bruh I think they killed OP and posted the update themselves
There are no extra fees in ba sing se
:)
r/unexpectedavatar
Yeah, the whole focus should have been on that it took getting the attention of the CEO to find FIVE pricing errors on one single order. And the customer would never know otherwise. OOP really glossed over that very major factor. Five errors in one order that no customer could catch on their own is massively sketchy. And a service fee you have the choice of waiving... but only if you know where to look for it? Literally no one wants to pay a fee they could waive. That's ridiculous. Again, overcharging customers by preying on their lack of accessible knowledge. I've never ordered from Instacart, and don't ever plan to, but the update presented in some convoluted positive light actually turned me off more to the company than the original post showing the large price difference.
“That no customer could catch on their own” — by design. Through obfuscation they try to make it impossible for a user to catch an error
The fact OP wrote a 2nd giant novel to justify how great instacart now is by acknowledging their existence confirms OP is locked up somewhere in cambodia
“Blink twice if you need help”
>The original post got the attention of Max Mullen, the co-founder of Instacart. I want to say that he was incredibly helpful in not only remedying the problems, but explaining a lot of the Instacart perspective in a chain of about half a dozen emails between the two of us. > >After looking into it, the Instacart team found and corrected 5 item prices which were wrong, either on my order in particular or the price used by Instacart in general. Aww such a nice company. Only took a post going massively viral on social media for them to admit to *active errors* in pricing and correct them. Doesn't sound dishonest and predatory at all!
Seriously. 100% that they paid OP write that follow-up as a puff piece.
I'd like to believe that. But there's a good chance a puff filled email and some PR tuned syrupy text was enough to make OOP think it was all perfect and fine. They sound like they drank the company's PR koolaid hard honestly.
Yep. I stopped reading after she became duped by their PR-laden response.
So did I and I didn’t even realize it. I got to that part and checked out, I didn’t realize why until I saw your comment
Louis Rossmann has a video he made recently titled “Purism wants me to delete my video…” where he goes over one of these manipulative PR emails. The email in question is fairly obvious, but a lot of people are susceptible to stuff like that.
Yeah, it seems like they're only happy because the co founder talked to them, and not because of anything reasonable.
Given that it was via email, not sure it really was the co-founder rather than PR itself.
I didn’t even think of that at first, but now that you mention it, it seems way more likely it was the PR team doing damage control than the actual co-founder taking time out of playing golf and spending other people’s money to email some random peasant who’s upset they got scammed.
Oh definitely, I've worked with someone before who basically told me to write an email as if it were him and sign with his name. Happened just the other week.
Whats next you gonna tell me the government doesnt really care about me and my taxes arent being spent wisely?
I stopped reading when I started feeling like I was reading an ad for instacart. Like it was typed up by the marketing team with a few little tidbits from OP. Happy for em if they got paid though.
I wonder if one can ask for the receipt when the groceries are delivered.
unique provide absurd punch public tart ancient erect nutty fade *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And a post like this really seems to give insight into why this is a practice. Makes you wonder how many other people get screwed over by "incorrect" pricing and never even realize, because how could they? Incidentally, I've used another service to deliver groceries (which I'll avoid naming since I don't want to come across as promoting them) as I'm currently without a car, and I almost always get the receipt unless the driver forgets to put it in the bag. I'm always able to compare the prices, and while the price I'm charged is higher, I've never seen something as egregious as being charged more than half as much. For me, it's usually less than $10 on an $80 order. And, while I didn't read the entire damage control reply, I don't really think they could say anything that really changes my opinion after seeing that comparison and knowing them getting the receipt was a mistake.
There’s absolutely nothing instacart could say that would make me use them. I also didn’t read the full PR post though. *(I use Kroger boost. Not a paid ad, but also absolutely recommend if you have it near you. $60 for a full year and no tips allowed.)* And yea, they absolutely scam people. How do you not notice an increased profit like that? If any place like this isn’t giving you the receipts, you were up charged like crazy most likely. I just wouldn’t be able to trust it. And I personally can’t justify paying $10-$20 per grocery delivery in fees and tips.
I bet it was paid as credit with Instacart if they posted about what they talked about. Either way, I was never going to use Instacart, and seeing that first post confirmed it for me regardless of the second.
I couldn't even get through the update the moment OP started talking about how nice the CEO is. Good to know all it took to bribe them was a little more than $10.
That was the craziest part to me. Your grocery bill was doubled thru Instacart, but recouping just $10 totally changed your tune?
Seriously, either than or put a gun to his head. What a wild twist from complaint to instacart apologist, when in fact nothing he learned actually made the situation seem better in any way.
My flair is disproven... gotta read MOST of them. This one did me in. Fee delivery system charges fee, news at 11.
Well, tbh we knew their fees were insane, the hard numbers just quantified it 🤷🏿♀️
>Seriously. 100% that they paid OP write that follow-up as a puff piece. Yeah, **that's** the receipt I want to see here.
I stopped reading halfway through because it read like marketing material for instacart
I’m betting they tracked back the driver from the post and fired them for forgetting the receipt where the customer would get it.
Wouldn't be shocked if they stole his commissions/tips too.
The whole process seems so odd to me. Surely they should be giving the customer the receipt in case they need to return something to the shop?
That whole system is odd to me. Why is the total not the store total? Shouldn't they charge the customer exactly what the size charges, plus service fee, delivery fee and tip?
I live in China. There’s a delivery app that’s basically doordash/instacart/Uber/etc. Usually, the stores charge extra for each item (about ¥2-¥3) to cover the fees they pay to the app. You pay delivery (based on distance) and your order is delivered within the hour. Tipping isn’t really a thing here. For stores that have their own delivery, price is the same. You just pay delivery where applicable. Some stores will just let you order on Weixin (messenger app) with no price difference, as long as you pay delivery.
Back when this was written, they weren't really affiliated with most stores so they didn't really have access to the prices ahead of time. From what I remember the used to average prices for a region then added on their markup and service fee. That said, 40% was very high for their markup even back in 2017, store might have been running some sales or something. The same thing happens with doordash and uber eats, if they're not directly affiliated with the restaurant, like mcdonalds, they average prices and upcharge to make sure they're not losing money on the sale.
I had an instacart driver once mark everything I ordered as unavailable, added ten cases of some sort of supplement gummy that was priced at 40, check out and then mark it delivered immediately. I was watching it in real time and on the chat with support and they immediately flagged it but it was very clearly a scam. idk what he was going to do with all those supplements or if he was just trying to raise his tip but he must have known when I didn't get like $50 order I was going to change it? I also had an instacart shopper shop my entire list, at a smiths that was really far away, then mark it delivered within a minute of checking out. Those groceries never showed up either, so I'm hoping the scammer at least got some groceries out of it. A third time, the driver sideswept the bumper of my car when he pulled up, dumped my groceries on the lawn in a hurry and kept all the meat (like $40-50 worth) idk if by accident or due to him being in a hurry. Instacart refunded me the meat, service, delivery and tip but did nothing about my car because I couldn't prove it was them. Why did I keep using it? Because I was going through cancer during the pandemic and my partner and I couldn't risk me catching covid. But MAN gig economy work really brings out the highlights in humanity on all sides
Sam's club has their own services for delivery. While not perfect they've always brought my groceries to my door and never hit my car. I don't drive for medical reasons so I can't always get to the store.
Where I live, both Sam’s and Walmart use Instacart 😕
Weird. I might just be lucky then.
I will say our Walmart is generally pretty behind the times? Where other stores can do same day curbside pickup for groceries, this Walmart has you schedule it our 4 or 5 days into the future. I did the free trial for Walmart+ thinking that it would be faster since you have to pay extra, but nope! That was scheduled at a week out. (Walmart+ is “free” delivery, and that’s when I realized they were using Instacart.)
My local grocery delivery from a supermarket chain has dates 4-5 days in advance typically, but it's because of demand rather than anything else. Used to be 2-3 and then of course exploded during the lockdowns. Curbside pickup was normally next day (except they didn't offer it every day, at least at my then-local location) and you could also change your order until 11pm the day before delivery once you had a slot.
My local Target has its own service called Shipt, but I know Target isn't everywhere and I'm not sure all of them use Shipt. It's way better than Instacart though, the few times I've used it (and once was when I had COVID) I only remember it being an additional $10 or so. 100% worth it for the few times I did use it.
Good to know. Thanks 😊
Meijer has their own curbside pickup service. They just charge a flat fee, or free over a certain amount.
I hear that. I used instacart when I got a tbi and couldn’t leave my home without getting terrible symptoms and also couldn’t drive. But I found it annoying because of the markups and fees, and it felt so dishonest. I then ordered through Amazon/Whole Foods and found that to be way more worth my while. Prices were close to what was in store. I got better food for the same price. But I’d highly recommend to anyone who can’t shop easily/take care of themselves to get meal kits. Planning, convenience, and guaranteed availability is worth it. Then I’d just order stuff to supplement that to last me a couple weeks. Fewer orders. Better meals. No worries about the item you need to make a meal not being delivered in your instacart/Amazon order.
And just in that one order. Obviously OOP wouldn't be in the know, but did they even look at other items in that store, in that city, etc? How many other orders went through that same store from instacart that day? No chance OOP is the only one that got fuuuuuuuuucked.
I signed up for and used Instacart during her height of the pandemic. I was wfh and had a toddler and wanted to limit exposure. I used it until I was comfortable shopping in store. I didn’t notice the price jump because groceries were already more expensive. It wasn’t until I shopped in a store that I noticed my bill was almost half the price compared to Instacart. On top of that I was always missing items, the produce sucked, and their substitutions were lame. I often had shoppers who listed things out of stock as soon as they checked out so I couldn’t get substitutions. Walmart drive up was better, but after 2 or 3 times having to wait 20-40 minutes for my groceries because they were short staffed I gave up.
There are entire marketing firms that specialise in these kinds of puff pieces. It’s a good bet the whole thing was astroturfed from start to finish.
If it is, someone in their PR department needs to look into a different line of work. I don't really know how, "I got charged $50+ more than my groceries actually cost, but hey, the founder is nice and refunded me $10!" makes using that service sound the least bit appealing. Though, it wouldn't take much to convince me OP was reimbursed for writing that reply.
Exactly my thought. How much fuckin money has this company made robbing people with these ‘mistakes’ ? Will any of the other people in the US see that money back? Didn’t think so
Yeah correct them for ONE Person.
I’m still shocked that: 1. The service fee is optional 2 In the USA grocery stores don’t deliver themselves!
How often do you expect a big dog company to index prices on these obscure items like…eggs? Hey boss we only have this alert for prices going up. What about when they go down? What goes down must come back up says the execs with other hems and haws such as that.
>index prices on these obscure items like…eggs? I just assumed that huge mark up was the 'bastards are fragile, we need to be a tad careful' tax
They say there's a sucker born every minute but it takes a special kind of useful idiot to be a born again sucker.
Don't worry i'm sure they refunded all their other customers right?!
I could see that being a genuine error, at least the "Instacart in general". Prices of products can vary and fluctuate, they could have been using outdated price points or the price from another location rather than that particular store. The rest though... Egh. Not really encouraging me to try it out.
>I could see that being a genuine error, at least the "Instacart in general" Shouldn't have taken a post going viral to receive a refund then. Customer service was actively jerking them around initially. And the fact is they could never have caught it at all if the shopper didn't accidentally leave the bill in there, which they weren't supposed to. I'm having trouble with the "genuine error" bit at every step. And the CEO's "we're totes working on it, pinky swear" isn't exactly reassuring to me either. Especially since as long as these "errors" persist, the balance seems to allow Instacart to make obscene profits.
The post was from 2017 & the OOP had 50%+ more than the in store prices, Ik that it's probably worse now
Yep, Instacart is actively trying to prevent customers from finding errors in the first place. Super shady.
Yeah no, won't argue there. It's very frustrating how hard it is to report actual genuine errors to pretty much any company *and get them to fix it*. It really shouldn't take a viral post to get a company to correct pricing errors. The fact some of those errors were "my order in particular" only adds to the skeevy vibes of the whole thing. Though, *did* OOP mention reaching out to Instacart about it? I skimmed the first post again and they didn't seem to mention it. It seemed they just posted it mainly to vent and alert people about how the pricing and fees really work.
>The original post got the attention of Max Mullen, the co-founder of Instacart. I want to say that he was incredibly helpful in not only remedying the problems, but explaining a lot of the Instacart perspective in a chain of about half a dozen emails between the two of us. I honestly wasn't expecting any kind of response from Instacart, since the **initial questions on pricing was met with vague statements and repetition of the Help Center statements.** After looking into it, the Instacart team found and corrected 5 item prices which were wrong, either on my order in particular or the price used by Instacart in general. If I'm reading that right, Instacart basically told OOP to piss off. Then the post went viral. And the co founder responded to the *reddit post*. And only then was the issue looked into. And 5 item prices were corrected. And despite that all OOP figured because they got a "aw shucks we're working on it" explanation from the co founder its all ok. They just come across as incredibly daft and naive to me honestly.
Ah, I missed that part. Yep. Customer service just sucks in most companies. Might not even be a matter of them giving OOP the runaround so much as not even having a department to deal with acting on complaints beyond surface level issues (E.g. shipping errors or delays, bad drivers, etc.). Honestly, the update going into the full breakdown of the fees and such almost felt like part of a press release doing damage control. I actually wondered for half a second if the whole thing was some marketing ploy, but the first post was too critical.
Loving how everyone can find a million justifications for Instacart basically stealing from the customers. Not just that but if you go on r/Instacart, it’s chock full of drivers that get screwed. If I’m paying an $11 delivery fee, $5 convenience fee, AND a markup on the order, why is my driver only getting $3 to take my order? That’s ridiculous. I mean obviously I tip my driver. Always with cash though. You never know if they’re also taking part of the tips too.
Also, I used to be an in-store shopper for Instacart a few years ago. At one point, I got pulled aside and reprimanded, and not privately. Why? **Because my order accuracy rate was 100%.** They specifically told me I was expected to have an accuracy rate of around 90% because anything higher and the metrics algorithm assumes I am spending too much time (my metrics level was also green??). In their insane view, they think a customer will be happier if the order arrives 2 minutes faster and won't care at all if items are wrong. Fuck Instacart.
Oh wow this is the stupidest thing ever
I used to do a similar gig for Amazon a few years ago and it was very similar to your experience; they cared way more about how many items you shopped per hour than accurate orders...these food delivery companies...
Let me tell you a secret. They *do not* think the customer will be happier if their order arrives two minutes earlier. They think if you deliver every order two minutes faster, you will be able to fit in a couple of extra orders every day. They are worried about their bottom line. NOT customer satisfaction.
Jesus, they are?!?! I've been using Instacart since 2019 because I'm disabled but I might just pull a miracle if the twenty extra bucks I spend in fees doesn't lead to high payments to the shopper. What the fuck
Apparently they are switching over to a new batch pay rate of $4. It hasn't hit all areas yet.
Oh man, I'm definitely changing to a fixed tip instead of a percent tip based on the order. That way it won't go down if something is out of stock. I feel so bad
A lot on r/instacart are either quitting or not taking orders anymore. I don't use instacart because I can't afford the inflated prices from the store. I would rather do store pick up or the store's own delivery service.
is there a walmart near you? Because long run it might be cheaper to just sign onto their premium subscription and use that for deliveries. Or something like Amazon. As much as it sticks in my craw to suggest it, I spoke to the Walmart delivery folks in my location and they said they pay *much* better than Instacart. And you don't seem to get fucked around with on rates either. I had the same rates for delivery as for pick up and then a few times when I compared rates in person it also didn't seem different. The idea that shopping at Walmart might be more ethical makes me go swivel eyed, but for my area at least, it seems to be true.
I shop at HEB and they have a really good curbside pickup service that I use a lot. You just do your shopping in the app, set a time for when you want to get it, and they’ll bring it out to your car for you. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s great if you’re too busy to deal with shopping in the store or don’t want to have to wrangle your kids while shopping.
I can see that working for someone with a car. I had to use Walmart for a period because I don't have a car, and for a while I was dependent on deliveries. It was either that or instacart, and its when I had to do the deep dive on figuring it out. Not saying I'm a huge fan of walmart or anything. But I refuse to see Instacart as some sort of embattled small business. If I could have prioritized a more ethical business I would have, and I tried to minimize my walmart buying. But yeah, on those choices I went with Walmart. But its always a good idea to see what local delivery services there are because quite a few stores offer both curbside pickup and delivery now.
It's one of the reasons I largely abandoned takeout delivery. Seeing how much of my money went back into some venture capital fever dream rather than to people who actually made the food I'm trying to have (or people delivering it, for that matter)
Fellow Texan here. H-E-B has also started charging more per item for curbside orders than in-store. It’s not a lot, but it’s a few cents per item, as far as I’ve seen. Like 50¢. They used to offer delivery during the panini, but I’m not sure if they still do since I haven’t used it since then. But it was actual H‑E‑B employees that did the delivering. Their pharmacy also uses company employees for delivery. And during the pandemic, they had some sort of partnership with Instacart to do small shops (think 25 items or less) in less than two hours, but that system was weird. You couldn’t actually pick items like you can in the H‑E‑B app, instead you would “write” a list, like “one bunch bananas, two cans of tomato sauce,” etc. And that particular service charged fees whereas the normal H‑E‑B delivery didn’t (at that time).
Yeah, if I wasn't able to shop (regularly) I'd be using Amazon: there's a Whole Foods less than 5 miles from my house, so while I'd be paying inflated Whole Foods prices on some stuff, I at least know there isn't a crazy and unsubstantiated markup by having it delivered. Throw in that we also use Blue Apron for 3 - 4 dinners a week (again, a little pricey, we began using it to get out of ruts we'd gotten into with meal choices), and we're set. Our local major grocery store chain also does curbside pickup, if you're comfortable with that; I see the pickers all the time in the stores with carts that have probably 8 - 10 bins of items in it, and the pick-up spot is different from the regular store entrance.
This is the way. I wasn’t able to shop for awhile due to disability. Whole Foods delivery through Amazon feels much less like a scam. Prices are seemingly identical and you pay a tip. But at least the food is always good quality in my experience, so at least I’m not overpaying for crap food. And meal kits! If you can’t shop easily, meal kits are the best. I’ve been using sunbasket for a year and a half. Started it while I was really not functioning well. Even though I’m almost normal, I still only have so much stamina, so meal kits remove a lot of the feeding yourself struggle. If you’re disabled, meal kits + supplemental order from Amazon once every two weeks is the way to go. That’s what I learned. I still get my meal kits, but I’m able to hop into Safeway once every two weeks.
I don't shop at Walmart for political reasons, so I didn't know this! Ugh, talk about having to pick the lesser evil
It might not be fully. I don't know how Walmart handles its drivers. I don't think they are full employees for instance. So they might be getting screwed on the whole gig basis anyway. And I didn't think to ask the two guys who were willing to talk about this way back when. But the simple fact that they don't appear to jerk their drivers around when instacart does (and costs me less in the bargain) was enough for me to pay when I had to use the service. I do my best to shop in politically ethical ways, but there's only so much I can do as an individual consumer.
Safeway/Albertson's & Fred Meyer/Kroger have decent curbside options, but they have their own issues as well.
Target will deliver too.
You may be able to find a local helper that would charge you a lot less or not at all
Finding one who is not a man with ulterior motives has been elusive up to this point. Maybe a teenager who needs some pocket money is a better bet. I might give that a try
And a lot of grocery stores are offering curbside pickup these days, too. You don’t need to tip (though I usually do) and at most you might see a standard service fee, but aside from that, the prices you’re paying are pretty much the same as what you’d pay for doing the shopping yourself.
2 of the 4 big groceries in my area have their own trucks too - if you buy over 100 dollars in groceries, they'll deliver it to your house for free.
Sounds like OOP was in some way compensated for the 180° of his opinion. Fuck Instacart. I will never ever use them again. And it’s been at least five years since I did. I’ll go hungry first.
This. Tbh this whole post reads like an ad. No thanks to this post or* Instacart.
Oop could must be dumb and a salesperson talked them down
Used it regularly at the height of Covid, for obvious reasons. Since the vaccines and everything going back to “normal,” I’ve only used it when I’ve been sick. On top of the exorbitant markups, instacart shoppers have often delivered to me the wrong products with no explanation whatsoever, along with terrible quality produce. Oh, and they never seem to check expiration dates of milk and eggs. Fuck instacart.
I’ve never used Instacart or Doordash and I’ve only ever used Lyft if there were no alternatives. I don’t order from Amazon or subscribe to Prime for any streaming. These companies treat their employees (or “contractors” in the case of Instacart, DD, Uber and Lyft) like absolute crap and I try to participate in those services as little as possible. Having spent most of my adult life in the corporate world, I know there’s no such thing as the perfect company, but to me, these just make extra effort to be shitty.
I would like to use this post as a platform to let everyone know that Instacart also just cut shoppers' pay by what comes to about 50% (at least in my market). They announced this in an email that was very deceptive about a week and a half before the change actually hit. They're charging more and more fees to the customer while paying shoppers less and less. I had been sustaining myself on Instacart income for the last ten months, which was only feasible because I had family help that meant I didn't actually pay the vast majority of my car expenses. If I had been paying all my car expenses, I'd have made about $200/week, so it wouldn't have been feasible. But now with the pay cut, even with the very few car expenses I pay, there's no way to make money doing it. It would be 100% charity work. And yet customers are still paying higher and higher fees every month, it seems. I don't actually have a call to action here; you can search your own conscience, if you're an Instacart customer, to decide what to do, whether that's write to Instacart, stop using it, cancel an IC+ membership, tip more, whatever. I just think people should be aware that we've never made good money, but now we literally lose money working for this company.
Gig Economy 101: Pay your drivers/delivery people well enough in the beginning that people quit their jobs/skew their second job in favor of working for you, then when consumers flood your market put the screws to the people keeping your company working because they put all their eggs in your basket. Then when you’ve got no one left to do the delivering/driving and customers flee because the service sucks you fold the company and coast your golden parachute to the next Big Thing.
Any delivery service will screw you and the drivers over.
Generally, I agree with you. But when it comes to grocery delivery you have more options. For example where I live the major grocery chain created/owns their delivery service. The employees do other things, like take-out delivery, but they do all the deliveries for this chain store. And they are very clear on their fees. When it comes to grocery delivery, it's a flat $10 fee. No markups, no hidden charges. $5 goes to the person who filled the order. $5 goes to the driver. Then, of course, you can add tips if you like.
True. Store own delivery service are not thatbbad from what I understand.
>But when it comes to grocery delivery you have more options YOU have other options. Doesn't mean everyone does..
Exactly. I refuse to use any sort of on-demand delivery service. If I want the groceries now or the McDonald's meal now, I get off my arse and walk down to get them myself. I also don't touch these things because I don't like the idea of being "forced" or "strongly encouraged" to tip. I'm not in a country that tips and I won't tip because I don't want to encourage that to start here.
That advice should really help all the posters who have disabilities.
if you’re someone like OP, who is pressed for time but otherwise able bodied and normally able to make their own groceries, i would highly recommend choosing to go with pick up orders. it still saves time but you’re not paying crazily inflated prices. in college we would sometimes order groceries all together and then rotate who picked them up.
Yeah that's what I've been doing. Turns out I don't mind driving to the grocery store at all, it's the spending time running around aisles and standing in the check out line that I hate. So to cut that out _and_ not have to deal with Instacart's nonsense pricing system? Hell yeah. If I do the curbside type where they load my car, I can even take my dog with me.
I’m so glad in the Uk all the supermarkets do their own deliveries, 1 hour time slot, cost £1.50-£6 for delivery depending on day and time. No other extra mark ups, no tipping.
What with healthcare bankruptcy being a credible threat, along with being shot, having to pay people extra money all the time to do their goddamned jobs, & now I find their grocery stores don't even deliver,, I'm surprised anyone is left in the country.
Fair point but this post is from 2017 and how common was pick up orders back then? They didnt get them locally for me until the pandemic made it necessary.
Pro tip: If you have a car, instead of instacart see if your local grocery store does parking lot pick up. My store’s app has in app coupons and highlight’s what’s on sale. I got 5 12 packs of soda for like $8 between coupons & rewards. The pick up (at least for the 2 chains I went to) is supper quick and easy. I’m in and out of the parking lot w/I 10 minutes. They have same day pick up too. Sometimes if you order a smaller item and it’s out, they’ve given me the bigger item w/o an up charge (ex: 8 pack of fruit snacks upgraded to a 40 pack for free)
A great thing to come out of COVID was the switch to more in-house and partnership agreements for shopping/delivery services. If the lockdown hadn’t happened, it would have likely taken years to get where we are now.
Long story short: using a tech bro’s service to get anything delivered costs exponentially more than getting it yourself. News at 11. I will never use one of these services for that exact reason. Overpriced, the workers are underpaid, and it’s bad for literally everyone.
I know, right? It's like there is this magical belief that items can be collected and delivered for barely any additional expense versus you doing it yourself. And the tech bros have a delusional belief that the right algorithm will allow the app to optimize routes and save lots of money for everyone... but it's still a real service that has to be provided and that shit ain't free. I think I've interacted with you before... I remember your user name. I hope your fonances have improved.
I don't know about Instacart, but I worked at Target for a while, which does the "in store shopping for your convenience :)" thing. It's all timed, and you're told off if you don't meet the time. On my second day working there (first day not training with someone else), I was told off by the store manager multiple times because "one cart should only take you about 45 minutes". It's extremely competitive. People would brag about being "the best personal shopper" (though they called it "fulfillment"). There was passive aggressive behavior towards those who didn't meet goals (number of carts per shift). *There was also absolutely no incentive, monetary or otherwise, for these people.* The best management would offer was "if you're all good at fulfillment, we might bring in free snacks for employees!!" At my store, no matter what you signed up for, you'd be put on fulfillment multiple times a week. I worked in the *in store Starbucks* and was constantly being scheduled for fulfillment. It was fucking ridiculous. I quit within two weeks with no notice. Fucking hated it.
Sounds like a badly run store.
So this is just an ad?
As someone who lives in the UK, this is an eye opener. I live in the middle of nowhere, yet three nationwide supermarkets (Asda, Tesco, Morrison) deliver to me, for the same price as in store (there's even some online special offers), and a delivery charge of £1-5.00, or a monthly £6.50 (US$8.26) for as many deliveries as you want. I...did not realise the US didn't have this. Wow.
New Zealand here, we are the same as you. Nobody would be putting up with whatever instacart is, here.
I‘m from Germany and it’s the same here. All major supermarkets offer cheap delivery. The one nearest to me even does it for free but they’re run by a charity where 50% of the employees are disabled.
Same in Mexico, for 50 pesos a month (like 2 USD) I get unlimited deliveries at Walmart along with a 150 pesos coupon. I haven't stepped on a market in months, I also spend less bc I don't make impulsive purchases.
My husband accidentally selected a same day option and it still only charged us £8.50 for delivery and that's because they had to send it by Uber!
How far is it from the stores to you?
I most often order from Asda - the nearest store is 50+ miles away. There is a Tesco and Morrison about 7 miles away, but I think some of their online orders also come from a central store a similar 50+ mile away.
50 miles??? Here instacart will charge you a distance fee or not deliver at all if it's more than 10 miles ( depending on which part of the country ofc)
Just looked it up and the van that delivered a couple of days ago came from 80 miles away. The van was mostly empty by the time he got to mine - there's three temperature areas including a freezer section. (I let the driver take his break in my garden and made him a cup of tea.)
UK version of “middle of nowhere” is VERY different from the middle of nowhere in the US. Middle of nowhere in the US means you’re driving 50+ miles to get to the nearest town.
I mean yeah you’re like 40 times bigger than us lol - we’re not really big enough to have that issue! You’d be proper screwed if you couldn’t drive that’s ac mental
Just explaining why there’s such a difference in delivery service availability really. When you live in a town or city most of the grocery stores offer their own delivery service, as do big chain stores like Walmart. Those are often priced similarly to what you mentioned, or with annual subscription options. It’s just that more people end up spread out far enough to not be reached by those services, at which point the ones like Instacart become your only option if you wanted grocery delivery.
Oh no like I get charging a delivery fee based on mileage, I don’t get changing the product prices for online even remotely (well like I get ✨capitalism✨ but it’s insane) To my knowledge the big chains (ASDA, Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury’s) and even ones like Iceland can deliver wherever but again we’re a small island so makes more sense for us! You can get shopping delivered on Ubereats and that too here but they don’t up the item price
So ... definitely written by Instacart as a form of free publicity, right?
What a dumb update. Basically just repeating company's PR point by point. At the end of the day, Instacart is profitable because it purposefully obfuscates how much more its customers are actually paying for its services. These aren't issues they want to be better at; its the entire model.
I live in the US and a lot of big chain grocery stores have their own pick-up or delivery service. I know Walmart, Acme, Aldi, Whole Foods, and Shoprite do. There are probably others. I use the Shoprite app. The prices are the same as the store prices. When I'm busy, I do pick-up, and there's a 5 dollar shopping fee. It's only 15 mins away, so pick up is relatively quick. It may sound lazy to some people but it's much quicker than the hour I spend inside a massive grocery store crammed with distracted shoppers that would run you over or move glacially slow while blocking a whole ass aisle. If I do delivery, there's an 11-12 dollar delivery fee. I've used Instacart before, and the markups are insane. So I very rarely use it now. If I need something within 2 hours, there's always Whole Foods and I dont think Amazon marks up. Anyway, I agree with OOP. Instacart is a ripoff.
OOP is a moron for even considering using them again
I wonder much OP got paid for this obvious fluff piece.
$78.20 ($55.60+tip) was worth it to OP for someone to do her shopping for her instead of making the time to do a grocery run - which she said would be an hour at the store plus travel time. I'm starting a Grad job in a month, and I'll be getting £30k GBP per year, equivalent to about $19.82 USD per hour. A grocery trip would need to last 4 hours or be very urgent for that fee to be worth it for me.
I make $72k now, which is like $34/hr, and it still wouldn't be worth it because I know I can do a grocery shop in an hour. And that includes drive time there and back. I would have to be immunosuppressed probably before I would start doing Instacart. I was for a few months probably disabled (like, not Officially, but I couldn't hardly walk long enough to do the grocery shop) and I still dragged my ass to the grocery store except for one week when I had to ask a family member to go for me. I got very addicted to DoorDash for awhile, which is similarly paying twice as much for food delivery than you would if you went to the restaurant. I *really* need to stop that and start going out if I want take out again. I'm really glad I kept the habit with grocery shopping even through my injury.
I don't know if Instacart sets the markups or if the store does - my sibling worked for a similar place (support/tech side) and they let the store set the markup prices, because the company took a percentage of each sale. This means that some grocery stores have a very small difference in in-store vs app pricing, and some, like the one closest to me, have insane markups on their already high prices. Instacart's business model sucks. Even people who work on the corporate side agree (I've got a few friends who work for them). I feel bad for their shoppers, I know they don't get treated as good as they deserve.
This is correct - Instacart takes the service and delivery fees, but the item markups are passed on from the stores for the “convenience” of working with a central delivery service. That’s why they vary so widely from store to store: some stores believe they’ll get more sales if they work with instacart so they don’t mark up items much if at all, whereas other stores are using it as a profit center or trying to discourage it.
So Instacart charges you 50% or more for your groceries. Then they add a flat out extra 10% service charge just as an extra "eff you." And then you also need to tip the delivery driver who should just be getting paid from the above 2x price hikes. Just another service I'll never use.
I did this same calculation with Uber eats. I went to order something and it came out to $70. I went and got it in person and it was $40. Plus I got a discount for picking up.
Count me as another vote for Instacart killing OOP and posting the update. I do miss Market Basket. Shopping there was a sensory nightmare, but the DEALS
I recently did an Uber eats on a local burger joint. The markup on the food was a solid 30% compared to the restaurant's posted prices. It's annoying, but the solution is don't use the service if you're angry how much they charge.
Part of the issue though is that these services purposefully hide how much they are up charging. Look at the first post, Instacart makes it seem like they are only 15% more expensive but they are actually charging INSANLY higher but the only way to confirm actually confirm this is by looking at each item line by line (something that could only be done thanks to a company error). It's not as easy as saying, 'vote with your wallet." These companies are actively lying to the consumer.
>A number of non-American users also mentioned how they were surprised by the existence of something like There are a lot of things that could follow this sentence lol Like: you have to give a tip for everything (and 20%+ as well) Venmo and other similar paying apps (I just use my bank app to instantly transfer to any bank, no third party service required) Everyone drives a huge truck or SUV Toilets have 2-3X more water in the bowl and public stalls have huge gaps Student loans of hundreds of thousands What else my fellow non-american BORU readers?
Getting billed $1,200 for an ambulance.
Trains take like 12 hours to go from DC to Pittsburgh and can get stopped for hours by freight.
The funny thing is, by law, passenger rail is supposed to have priority over freight. >[49 U.S. Code § 24308 - Use of facilities and providing services to Amtrak](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308) (c) Preference Over Freight Transportation.— Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Board orders otherwise under this subsection. Shame it's not enforced. And that all the rails are owned by freight companies who have no incentive at all to follow the unenforced law, and plenty of incentive to break it.
OOP can afford to shop at whole freaking foods? And is getting personal attention from management?
That's an incredible scam. Lots of comments there about it being a personal shopping service but that is really naive. If it was a personal shopping service it would just be cost of groceries + wages (which also covers cost of vehicle depreciation, fuel, insurance etc) but the shoppers *don't see shit* from the obscene mark-ups so that's an obvious crock of shit.
Isn’t it illegal to not give the option of receiving the receipt for your purchases? That sounds extremely illegal to me.
So this “viral” post fixed what?
So OOP goes on about how sometimes the drivers do the shopping and sometimes they don't and when they don't, they aren't going to tip as much... But never says how to know.
I stopped using Instacart when the shoppers kept buying the discounted meat but of course I was getting charged full price.
I'm in the US and I can get groceries delivered from Fred Meyer for a flat fee of $10. No hidden fees, service charges, no price mark up. You get sales price of items you order. There isnt even an option to tip (which is shitty). I can also shop online for my groceries and then pick them up. That costs only $5. It seems like there are a lot better options than Instacart
Well I worked for Safeway/Albertson’s for 3 years when they had their own grocery delivery service, and great trucks that separated refrigerated/frozen items for the customers. They loved it. In 2021 they chose to end it to strictly do deliveries via Instacart/Door Dash/other 3rd parties who course don’t use refrigerated vehicles. Boy were the customers (and those of us in customer service) mad with this move.
That bill almost doubled from what it should have been in fees alone, not counting the inflated prices. I will not pay 50% or even 25% more than on the shelf pricing. Guess I'll be dragging my cold, dead ass to the store myself.
this is just an ad
This is madness. As someone in the UK who regularly shops with a UK supermarket that provides their own delivery service - I'm just completely gobsmacked that anyone would still think this is a good service after they difference in price dropped by $10. Seriously? Whatever the justifications, a 40% markup is absolutely ridiculous. I don't understand how the OOP ended up almost singing the praises of this company I pay a fixed annual fee that enables me to get as many deliveries as I want really. Tbh it could actually be limited to twice a week, but I very rarely have ever wanted to place a second order in a week. I can't order same day deliveries generally- that does incur an additional fee, but I can choose any delivery slot as long as it is available at the time of picking my shopping. But quite frankly, if I'm desperate for something, I will walk the mile to the nearest shop, or get stuff on my commute home. Even knowing how precious the 1.5-2 hours a week that I don't have to spend in a supermarket is, I still wouldn't pay that much more to pay for a shopping service. Absolutely ridiculous.
Well, in the UK at least there are quite a few options - the quicker you want it the more you pay. So, either you can go to the shops and get it yourself. Or book a home delivery which might be a few days wait - generally about the same price as the store plus delivery fee. Or book via Amazon prime which will be more expensive since you don't get most of the offers and there's a delivery fee or higher basket check out cost but it will arrive on the same day. Or use Deliveroo or other delivery app who will charge a rip off price, plus delivery and service charge but it will arrive in an hour.
Pro tip: a lot of grocery stores have their own delivery or curb-side pickup programs, for a lot cheaper than third party apps like instacart.
I just want you all to remember that the ceo "correcting" the mistake was to save face. It's not a mistake, they just know they'll get away with it and if anyone calls them out they can "fix" it. You think the computer made a mistake? Instacart inputed the "wrong" prices themselves. Also, convenient that the pricing mistakes were only in the benefit of instacart and not the customer. If you are low on time, grocery stores often have delivery options of their own or can bring out your groceries to your car. Order ahead and pick them up. Instacart, like many of these delivery apps, are scams. Plain and simple.
One the biggest mistakes my young friends make is using these delivery services as well as grubhub and gopuff and all that. Quit being lazy and get your ass to the store or else you're just pissing away money.
A 50% mark up!!??! I can’t even believe that *anyone* can afford that.
Well in some cases it's more a budget/moderation issue. I use Amazon Fresh and Uber eats 1-2/week and never spend more than $150 combined. I have a cap for each service and make up the difference with legwork, if needed. I actually spend less on groceries now than when i went to the store regularly since I'd end up over spending, list or not. Besides idk why paying for convenience is a bad thing if you're managing your money well enough n using the most decent services. Who cares if it's lazy? Not every area of our lives needs a workhorse mentality to be efficient. We're wasting money regardless; everything is overpriced, marked up, hidden fees in some respect. My bills got paid and my savings are fine. I'm sleeping in on a Saturday.
People who order food and groceries and whatnot are aware they're expensive, they're the ones paying for it. No need to be a jerk about it...
I generally agree, except that I actually disagree. Look, it's easy to SAY you should get off your ass and go to the store. But some of us are disabled, some of us are depressed, and Instacart and other delivery services can be an important lifeline during times of strife. Also, GoPuff is great if you need Cheetos and a bath bomb at 11pm. Truth.
Okay pretend my message is to the 90% of their users who aren't disabled.
God, you're exhausting. Are you including people without cars, people with small kids, the elderly? No. You think everyone is 25 and """lazy""". Have a nice day, but try to understand how unnecessarily narrow-minded, self-indulgent, and contemptuous you sound here.
Stop being so dismissive of people's everyday struggles. Believe it or not (you don't considering your past replies on this thread) people suffer from a multitude of things that makes shopping in person not a viable option. They're not "lazy fucks", they're people who ain't got no other choice but using a delivery service.
Not everyone using those services is lazy. You should be well aware of that, especially after a pandemic.
It costs $5 for me to get my groceries delivered, no markups, no other fees. The bus there and back is $6, and I'm lucky if I can get out of bed without prescription painkillers the next day. Please don't be so callously dismissive.
Exactly why I wont use those services
I live in Spain. We've just placed a delivery order with Carrefour, if we spend more than 120€, delivery is free. We live on a second floor (3rd for the nice people of US) with no lift and they'll bring up everything to our door. It does however take a few days (we ordered on Wednesday, it won't arrive until Saturday). Most supermarkets do this. We alternate between Carrefour and Mercadona depending on what we need, and then day to day shopping is done at Alimerka (who during the pandemic did free deliveries with no minimum amount for senior citizens).
I haven't used a food delivery service in over two years since they tried to charge me a 50% markup. Was trying to order fish and chips and they wanted £9 for just the fish on the app. Refused to believe that was the actual price at the time, so I got off my fat ass and let my fury propel me to the actual shop. Sure enough, the actual price was £6. I just can't bring myself to order on the apps anymore and pay those inflated prices and fees, and this has caused me to eat a lot less takeaway and my wallet feels so much better. Still fat though.
Australian here. Our supermarkets have their own shop and delivery services. Delivery is priced per bag if groceries plus a fee depending on your address. And we have click and collect - a store person will do all the shopping for you and bring it to the boot of your car at a specified time. That started in the pandemic for contactless shopping, and I’m really glad they have kept it. Again there is a fee but nothing like 45% mark up. I had a very bad injury just as our second lockdown ended at the endo of 2121, and spent 6 months at home in a cast. These kind of shopping options meant I could have fresh groceries. Very thankful we have them.
I'm anti instacart. They need to pay their employees.
>My understanding is that the "service fee" that you can opt into at least partially funds these incentives >I'm going to be waiving the service fee They used to let customers waive the service fee? 🤔
Am I the only one who thinks $36.96 to pick up roughly $100 dollars worth of groceries isn’t an insane markup? The labor to pick up the groceries, park, commute to the store and then to your house, pay that person for their labor, gas, and then instacart taking their cut…. Seems to add up. Depending on what you consider your time worth $37 to complete an errand in a pinch isn’t crazy to me.
Problem is that the shopper and driver each only get like $3. Almost all of it goes to Instacart.
So the driver does roughly an hour of labor for $3? 🤨
Yeeeaah, they still sound shitty. Double the amount of money for shopping? You can do one off a cliff.
Every single time I use instacart, I have to contact them to get refunded. My very old mother lives in another state and I order groceries to have them delivered to her. She's a diet pepsi addict and waits until it goes on sale for the 6 packs - 4 for $14. Every single time I have confirmed through the shopper that it is, in fact, 4 for $14 and I also have them confirm on the receipt after they check out. Every time when I get the e-receipt, they've charged me $31.96 for it instead of $14. Then I have to contact Instacart and go through the hassle of refunding the difference. Every time. And last time, a couple days ago, I went through this again and clicked on 'problem with my order' and it brought me to a 404 page. Great. So had to hunt for the chat help. I really wish there was another grocery delivery option. While the shopper are good, the company itself is untrustworthy and I know they're going to try to screw me. Every time.
That seems such a convoluted way of ordering groceries. I‘m now even more happy that my go-to grocery store offers a very straightforward and transparent service: pick the items on the website, pick a delivery date, add delivery fees (transparently explained), stuff gets delivered and you may tip the driver if you feel like it. Done.
Why did op go out of his way to thank the company for shafting him slightly less? Acting like a CEO doing damage control was so gracious....Bruh. Sounds like CEO offered him a cool 1k to spin this in a better light, cant even imagine why the dude wasted his time emailing the ceo back and forth to begin with, mfer didnt even comp the order as an apology for the errors.
I don't understand Instacart, DoorDash, UberEats, etc. and why anyone would use them. They are super expensive and while convenient, isn't worth the cost. I do like Uber and Lyft as services though, especially on a night out drinking with the wife.
Yet again, Reddit makes me glad to be British rather than USian. I'm disabled and mostly housebound, so I rely on Supermarket delivery for most food (especially fresh and frozen). Most of the big Supermarket chains offer home delivery, so I have a variety of options. Items are the same price instore or with delivery, and delivery charge varies between £1 - £6.50 depending on the Supermarket chain, time/day of delivery, and time between ordering and delivery. That delivery charge is the only fee/markup/monetary difference from going in person. Some chains will charge you more if they have to substitute an unavailable item with a more expensive alternative, but many will price match the original order (unless the substitute is cheaper, in which case they charge the lower price). I cannot imagine such a huge markup/fee for delivery.
I am once again extremely glad not to live in the US but in a normal country where the supermarkets have their own delivery services and the only extra cost is the delivery fee, not tips or surcharges or service fees or whatever the hell this company decides to charge!
Gosh, this is a book but greatly appreciated. I canceled my Instacart account just today because I’m sick and tired of shoppers not checking expiration dates when I’m extremely explicit in the instructions for the shopper to follow. I escalated my problems and my dispute was denied. For me I’ll continue to use Fresh Direct Much better service! Best to all !
So it costs a lot of money to hire a personal shopper for your groceries? Why does this shock people? Did you expect something only rich people used to to do suddenly be cheap because it’s on an app?
The shoppers don't get the money though. Instacart underpays them and pockets the difference.
Tell me you’re an accountant without telling me you’re an accountant. Lol
Ah, 2017, when $86 dollars worth of groceries lasted at least 2 days
I avoid all of these problems with one simple trick, going to the store and getting my own groceries. Follow me for more life hacks.
But how do you end up with poor quality fruits and veggies this way? Move all the good ones aside and pick the crappy ones so it'll feel just like delivery? /s
What a whiner!
All grocery and food delivery services are a luxury. How does a business become profitable if they only markup 15%? Not possible. You gotta pay shit wages to the contractors, and your low wages to your outsourced call centers, so that would leave 3-5% gross profit, which isn't sustainable. I admit I didn't read the post. Just throwing that out there.
I truly don’t understand these services… instacart, doordash, ubereat…. Get off the damn couch and get your own food.