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Thread: Instacart is a failsite and I hate it. Tips?

  1. #121
    Plutonium lol wow's Avatar
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    Like really?

  2. #122
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    Quote Originally Posted by lol wow View Post
    Wtf is wrong with you cucks first time at a grocery in 3 months seriously
    Think I've been to the grocery store once in the past year and a half. There's no reason to go there unless you're poor.

  3. #123
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    And no, Whole Foods is NOT a grocery store

  4. #124
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    There's actually a lot of reasons to go to the grocery store yourself if you're not poor.

    In general I like doing things for myself, so I had never tried a grocery delivery service prior to the corona. Now that I have some experience with it, I can say that there's some good and some bad to these services (ignoring the corona issue).

    The good is that it saves the time and the tedium of driving to the store, searching for things, walking around the store getting everything, standing in line, and checking out.

    The bad is that there's all kinds of fail -- missing items, wrong items, substitutions you didn't want, inability to choose the best expiration date products, etc. You also can't just browse around and grab things you see and like. Online it's mostly just buying what you know. And in some cases like Instacart, there's a fairly big markup. Also you have people delivering the stuff who don't care, so your cold items won't always arrive cold.

    I also question the time savings. Between submitting the online orders, occasional site issues, and correcting mistakes on the bill, I'm not sure I'm saving a lot of time. I'm saving some, but not as much as you'd think.

    I will say that it's useful for days you need to be home all day, and also for ordering items like household products and canned goods, where expiration dates and keeping the items cold don't matter. A can of beans is a can of beans, and it's not a big deal if the can is slightly dented or it expires in July 2021 instead of November 2021.

    When the corona passes, I will probably still do some online grocery delivery, but I'll also be returning to go myself for some things.

  5. #125
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    I will say that some situations apply to me which don't apply to some others though.

    I have a family, and that requires a larger variety of items than a single dude living alone.

    I have a need to correct all fuckups and get really irritated with myself if I get charged for something if I don't receive. Unless it's literally pennies, I can't just let it go.

    In general, I don't place much value on being served or having things done for me. For example, I would much rather drag my own luggage up to the room than use the bellman (even if tips are already included), and would much rather self park than valet (again, even if the cost and tips are already included).

    I remember on the big island of Hawaii in 1999, I stayed at Mauna Kea (a very nice hotel there -- at least back in the late '90s), and I asked them where the self parking was. They replied, "Sir, it's all valet, which is included, and our employees are not allowed to accept tips. Everything is included. Just leave your car with the valet." I answered, "Okay, so you're saying there's no self park?" They were very surprised to hear I still wanted to self park, and just told me to park it myself in the valet lot, which I did. This was obviously a rental car, so I wasn't even worried about damage or fucking with my stuff. I just don't like valet parking.

  6. #126
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    I don't really do grocery store delivery very often either. I eat about 90% of my meals from restaurants, or I do soylent. If I want to cook a meal at home I'll have a meal kit shipped to me.

    But yeah, single guy

  7. #127
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    Haven't read the whole thread, but I'm confused why you don't do Whole Foods delivery. If you have Prime it's free, no service fees, and you don't have to tip. Same prices as in the store.

  8. #128
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Sidewinder View Post
    I had instacart for 3 months and finally couldn't take it and they refunded me the yearly.


    If the store was out of an item, half the time (literally) or more they wouldn't adjust what they charged me - I would just get dinged for the item that never showed up. I would often get wrong flavors, etc when I ordered drinks, etc. I'd suggest hiring a big 8 accounting firm to audit every delivery.

    If there was a buy 1 get 1 free, I would buy the 1 and never get the freebie (and get charged full price instead of 50%), or choose 2 thinking the final charge would be less since the 1 item was free and you guessed it - I would get charged full price for 2 items and only get 2, not the 4 you would of otherwise expected.

    In 3 months they probably made 15-20 mistakes, every single time it was in their favor. I was 0-15 to 0-20 on having a mistake go my way.

    In 3 months I might of been 0-9 in trying to get the right price/items on a buy 1 get one free purchase..

    If I remember correctly their call center closed at 6pm so if you got a delivery after that you had to wait till the next day to complain about your order. I might of called them 50 times in the 3 months.

    Imagine a homeless person went grocery shopping and then a crack-head did the accounting. This would be better than almost every Instacart transaction I had.

    In my adult life, it was without question the worst online commerce experience.

    I would rather lick the floor of the E.R. than ever use Instacart.

    But maybe I just got unlucky, alot...

    now you got me wondering if they adjusted my orders or not. i get the feeling im in for rude surprises.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...mers-tips.html

    If there is any possible way to steal, these people will do it.

    Imagine if the owners/managers of Ultimate Bet ran a grocery delivery site. It is impossible there is a worse (legal) e-commerce company anywhere now or in the history of the internet than this place.

  9. #129
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Instacart does suck, and I stand by my original criticisms.

    That "tip stealing" article is a bit misleading. Instacart isn't stealing tips. They are charging a service fee AND soliciting tips, with only the tips going to the driver, with the service fee being kept by Instacart. This has confused people, but it's not really stealing.

    As I've suggested, you should NOT use Instacart unless you have no other choice.

    Do not ever use them for grocery store delivery, as most major grocery stores have their own delivery service WITHOUT MARKUPS and WITHOUT TIPS (because it's well-paid union employees doing the deliveries).

    I used Instacart for Vons before quickly realizing Vons had its own (far superior and cheaper) service.

    I only use Instacart for Costco, but I don't pay service fees because I do it through sameday.costco.com, which accesses the same items with lesser markup and no service fees. However, you do need a Costco account to use sameday.costco.com, whereas the Instacart version does not require a membership.

  10. #130
    Platinum FRANKRIZZO's Avatar
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    good deal above

  11. #131
    Plutonium lol wow's Avatar
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    alright couple 2 things instacart is awesome i can order a custom sandwich from vons and add cucus

    CUCUES baby also stock is through the the moon i dont want to support sonatines competing site that i literally havent gone to but through the moon

  12. #132
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    Quote Originally Posted by lol wow View Post
    alright couple 2 things instacart is awesome i can order a custom sandwich from vons and add cucus

    CUCUES baby also stock is through the the moon i dont want to support sonatines competing site that i literally havent gone to but through the moon
    There is literally nothing awesome about Instacart. They will 100% fuck you ASAP and often. GL

  13. #133
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Instacart does suck, and I stand by my original criticisms.

    That "tip stealing" article is a bit misleading. Instacart isn't stealing tips. They are charging a service fee AND soliciting tips, with only the tips going to the driver, with the service fee being kept by Instacart. This has confused people, but it's not really stealing.

    As I've suggested, you should NOT use Instacart unless you have no other choice.

    Do not ever use them for grocery store delivery, as most major grocery stores have their own delivery service WITHOUT MARKUPS and WITHOUT TIPS (because it's well-paid union employees doing the deliveries).

    I used Instacart for Vons before quickly realizing Vons had its own (far superior and cheaper) service.

    I only use Instacart for Costco, but I don't pay service fees because I do it through sameday.costco.com, which accesses the same items with lesser markup and no service fees. However, you do need a Costco account to use sameday.costco.com, whereas the Instacart version does not require a membership.
    I saw where Costco had grocery delivery... Are you saying they co-opt/outsourced the Gypsies at Instacart to do the delivery?

    Going to the grocery store is for peasants and is the nut low in life.

    It is awesome if you want to hear Desperado.

  14. #134
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sidewinder View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Instacart does suck, and I stand by my original criticisms.

    That "tip stealing" article is a bit misleading. Instacart isn't stealing tips. They are charging a service fee AND soliciting tips, with only the tips going to the driver, with the service fee being kept by Instacart. This has confused people, but it's not really stealing.

    As I've suggested, you should NOT use Instacart unless you have no other choice.

    Do not ever use them for grocery store delivery, as most major grocery stores have their own delivery service WITHOUT MARKUPS and WITHOUT TIPS (because it's well-paid union employees doing the deliveries).

    I used Instacart for Vons before quickly realizing Vons had its own (far superior and cheaper) service.

    I only use Instacart for Costco, but I don't pay service fees because I do it through sameday.costco.com, which accesses the same items with lesser markup and no service fees. However, you do need a Costco account to use sameday.costco.com, whereas the Instacart version does not require a membership.
    I saw where Costco had grocery delivery... Are you saying they co-opt/outsourced the Gypsies at Instacart to do the delivery?

    Going to the grocery store is for peasants and is the nut low in life.

    It is awesome if you want to hear Desperado.
    They don't have delivery. They've outsourced it to Instacart, yes.

    What's confusing is that there's 2 ways to do it:

    1) Directly through Instacart. This has big markups and an obnoxious "service fee". This does NOT requires a Costco membership.

    -or-

    2) Through Costco, at sameday.costco.com. The markups are a little less, but more importantly the service fee is ZERO. However, it does require a Costco membership.

    So if you have a Costco membership (or can borrow one from someone else), you'd be a fool to do it through Instacart directly.

     
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      Sidewinder: ty!

  15. #135
    Silver JohnCommode's Avatar
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    This scam by Whole Foods delivery drivers who hang smart phones in trees near their stores and Amazon delivery stations just shows the endless ability of people to game almost any system.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...?sref=nOLch4DD

  16. #136
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    Bump.

    I quit my job a couple months ago and have been doing side gigs since, including a little Instacart. I have actually never used it as a customer. So if anyone has any questions about the service from the driver/shopper side or wants the driver perspective, just shoot. I live in Eastern Los Angeles County/Orange County area FWIW.

    Anyways, FWIW I don't know how much Instacart is raking off the top or how much the customer is paying. All I see is the payment I am going to receive, including the proposed tip (which can be modified later by the customer).

    I will say without a good tip it is a completely unusable service IMO. With no tip you are probably lucky to make $10-15/hr. So I (and I presume a lot of other shoppers) just try to cherry-pick the rare order with a good tip. On the orders I actually take I probably make $20-25/hr, but it isn't very many. Instacart actually rewards delivery drivers/shoppers who do a lot of volume and get good ratings by giving them first dibs, which is fair. So unless there is a lot of volume at once I don't see the good orders. But I have other stuff going on so it isn't worth it to me to do a ton of shitty orders just to start seeing more good ones.

    I will make a couple comments about replacements. The first thing to keep in perspective for the shopper/driver is that time is money. So the last thing you want to do is go down a rabbit hole and waste 30 minutes looking for a perfect replacement, because then you just took a big hourly pay cut and now you are going to be late on top. So you are trying to do your best as fast as you can. The second thing is that Instacart actually gives you suggestions in the app for replacements (which often aren't very good). You can over-ride their suggestions and go on your own, but it is a lot more work messing with the app, which is again time, which is money out of your pocket.

    One other thing is that they often give us 2-3 orders at once, and you have to deliver them in the order the app tells you to, so if you are the 3rd customer and you have ice cream it is probably going to be melted some by the time it gets to you. It just is what it is, not the shopper/drivers fault.
    Last edited by Kalam; 11-10-2020 at 06:33 AM.

  17. #137
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    What is your opinion of people who tip flat rate instead of by percentage of the order?

    I do a flat $20 tip for Costco regardless of how expensive the stuff is that I buy. I think that's good enough, and since this isn't a restaurant, the value of the items purchased shouldn't matter. In fact, it's easier if you're carrying small, expensive items rather than a bunch of bulky items which cost $6 each.

  18. #138
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    What is your opinion of people who tip flat rate instead of by percentage of the order?

    I do a flat $20 tip for Costco regardless of how expensive the stuff is that I buy. I think that's good enough, and since this isn't a restaurant, the value of the items purchased shouldn't matter. In fact, it's easier if you're carrying small, expensive items rather than a bunch of bulky items which cost $6 each.
    You just want the tip to be big enough to make it worth your time. I actually have not really put that much thought into how it gets there, and the app doesn't tell you how it gets there. It just gives you the total. Also, like I said you are often doing 2-3 orders at once, so you aren't even sure who is doing the tipping (although you can look it up the next day because they give the customers a day to modify the tips before we get them).

    I will say a $20 tip (I actually don't know how much of your $20 Instacart takes off the top before I see it) on a Costco order that will take less than 2 hrs total (including estimated driving time and time spent waiting in line) is pretty solid, and I would probably take that order, although I personally don't actually see very many orders like that presumably because the preferred shoppers have snagged them already.

    Also I will say that especially for the people doing this full-time for a living ratings are VERY important, because having a good rating gives you early dibs so you can get the best orders. So if something goes wrong with the order and it might not be the drivers fault or might have been an honest mistake, I would suggest you show a little heart/perspective and give the driver a 5 rating anyways.

  19. #139
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    So what you're saying is they can't see how much I'm paying? Because I've seen the actual Costco receipt (prior to markup) appear in my stuff a few times, so I figured they were able to see all of that. I think it was accidentally left there, but whatever.

    How many different stores do you shop for?

  20. #140
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    So what you're saying is they can't see how much I'm paying? Because I've seen the actual Costco receipt (prior to markup) appear in my stuff a few times, so I figured they were able to see all of that. I think it was accidentally left there, but whatever.

    How many different stores do you shop for?
    We are supposed to keep the paper receipts from the store, probably in case there is some sort of issue. However, I have no clue what you are actually paying. I personally don't have any idea because I haver never used the service as a customer. Maybe a shopper/driver who uses the service as a customer too has a feel for what is going on behind the curtain, but I personally don't.

    Also, you don't shop for specific stores. There is just a running list on the phone app of all the gigs that are open in your general area. It tells you the store including location, total number of items, total earnings for you (including proposed tip) and gives you a little map of the store and drop offs. AFAIK it is first come first serve (although I know they have VIP shoppers who see the orders first). The good orders disappear very fast, so if you see something that looks promising you have to process the relevant information very fast and make a decision.

    Relevant information is location of the store and drop offs, total price (including tip) and number of items (which gives you an idea of how long it might take). So you try to process all of this in a second (literally) and decide if the order is worth the time/effort or not. Or at least that is how I do it. Like I said, if someone is just blinding clicking on all the orders offered, I would be surprised if they are making $15/hr at the end of the day.

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