About that Instacart order…

News today is that Walmart joined the pool of Instacart available stores, at least in a few test regions of the country. Mine is one of them. I have some mixed feelings about that. I’ve gathered a lot of personal experience using online grocery shopping for over a decade and I wanted to share some of those for folks who may be using various online gig workers for the first time during the pandemic.

As a chronically ill and ostensibly housebound invididual, I have relied heavily on on-line grocery shopping since it first became available in my area at the turn of the LAST CENTURY! It’s true there were little peach logo vans buzzing around trying to establish a market as early as 1997 in some states. And I was an early adopter because even back then it was difficult for me to manage the world at large and all of my spoons were used for my work and my young children. But the early attempts to entice an market base were mostly ahead of their time and one after another each slowly faded away. Even Amazon Fresh wasn’t able to sustain a base in my inland SoCal neighborhood. So I have relied on individual market delivery services, such as VONS.COM (Safeway) or in recent years Instacart.

I was excited that Instacart offered me a variety of stores to shop from and since I haven’t been in a bricks and morter grocery store in many years, I was absolutely thrilled that I could get organic specialty items from the likes of Sprouts. We have a multigen home and a family of 10, so our orders can get quite large. During some busy periods we would place an order every day of the week. There was a learning curve to be certain. For both myself and also for each of the shoppers. My experience is that Instacart did a poor job conveying how pricing worked for their gig workers. I would often get calls from my shopper arguing that the “sale price” offered on the instacart sight was not what she was seeing on the shelf of the store. Which is absolutely true, more about that later. I found myself spending a lot of time, “discussing” the discrepancies and eventually resolving issues with customer support after the order was complete.

But it was a new services and we were all learning the ropes. What felt frustrating was the turn over we were seeing. Instacart even in the early days had a hard time keeping a consistent pool of shoppers. Indeed, Instacart has a long history of gig worker disatisfaction. From unions, strikes to tip policies or internal hackers stealing orders through batch grabs or bots all of this on top of the new demands of the pandemic and gig worker Corona Virus response complaints.

I do think that most gig shoppers are conscientious about their customer saftey. And while instacart and doordash both claim they will now offer sick leave for their gig workers the high bar for filing claims may not fulfill the need. Because of this, and because our multigen family has several people who are immuno-compromised and/or in high risk catigories for Covid-19, we try and use delivery services such as Vons.com who provide traiining and PPE to their employees as well as sick leave and refrigerated company trucks. The shopping experience may be less than ideal, for instance due to Covid, Vons will not let you edit an order after you place it. And of course because you do not have a “personal shopper” you won’t know if an item is out of stock or substituted (unless you specify no substitutions, then you may just be SOL if you relied on an ingredient for your meal plan.)

Walmart also has had a grocery delivery service during Covid. And in this case, Walmart employees gather and bag the order and pass it on to a door dash representative to deliver. Perhaps slightly better model since you assume the Walmart employee is following in store protocols for masks and sanitation and they have paid sick leave as part of their benefit package. And let’s face it, local grocers go out of business because they simply can’t compete with Walmart low prices. It’s staggering really. Take for instance a package of Gardein Teriyaki Chick’n Strips (YUM!) if you buy this at Walmart.com the price this week is $3.12. The same package sold at Vons.com jumps to $4.99. But look, this SAME exact package if you buy it on Instacart at Vons (same shelf, same store) this week lists for $5.79.

Same product, in two case the same store. But the instacart mark up on some grocers is quite high. Remember on top of this you are paying an annual fee, service charge and tipping your personal shopper. And hey, it’s a pandemic you should be tipping your personal shopper WELL during a pandemic. Consider your tip as part of your grocery budget. You can’t skimp on a tip if you go over your spending limit for food. Put the twinkies back on the shelf and tip your gig worker MORE. It is not uncommon for us to have $200-$300 receipts multiple times a week .. again we are a household of 10 people. Before Covid we would always tip at least 10% to the gig worker. During covid we tip more. Always. Even if the service is “bad”. Because we understand that not everything is in stock, that learning curves are high (lots of turn over) and that people NEED THE MONEY.

So if you use gig workers, TIP them as if they were family members celebrating a milestone birthday.

If you do shop at instacart, know that the mark ups are not across the board on all products at all stores. As I said, I was concerned when I heard that Walmart was partnering with Instacart because I relied on the $3.12 shelf prices I was getting on Walmart grocery delivery. So when I checked to see what the Instacart Walmart Gardein Teriyaki Chick’n Strips price was this morning, I was relieved to see that it was identical. Indeed the CURRENT pricing policy for Walmart at Instacart as follows:

“Everyday store prices
Walmart sets the price of items on the Instacart marketplace. Item prices are generally the same as in-store prices in your area. Most in-store sales, promotions, offers, coupons and discounts will apply. Price as displayed.“

But this is NOT the case for other stores. To find out how in store prices compare to the price listings of a particular store on Instacart click on the Price information link below the store icon.

For instance when I clicked on Costco today it said “Prices vary from in-warehouse. Prices are higher than your local warehouse. Costco members also do not earn 2% executive reward on Instacart.”

And it’s not a one and done. Because stores may change their pricing policy at any time. I use to shop a particular store when I first started using Instacart several years ago, because it specifically said it had in-store prices (much like Walmart did today.) However, when I checked back recently I see that they also now ” Item prices through Instacart are higher than in-store and advertised prices in your area. Most in-store sales, promotions, offers, coupons and discounts do not apply. “

So know your options, research your store and consider how your values match the business models you are supporting with your grocery budget. There are also new services such as dumpling which seems to be a hybrid model, offering a one-on-one relationship with your shopper who sets their own prices and gratuity. So far I haven’t gathered enough spoons to try anything new. But I’ll watch from the sidelines and see how they do. Let me know in the comments if you’ve used dumpling and how you liked it.

Each of us are doing our best as we navigate 2020. Be kind to yourself and those hunkered down with you. And remember to tip your service people well!