1. The time slot changes as soon as you click checkout, what I mean is while browsing I'll always see "Available Within 1 hour" then when it actually is time to checkout that option is gone. It happens virtually every time and I've never seen it happen the other way around or happen while shopping and refreshing or going back and forth between shopping and checking out. This leads me to believe it's an intended trick they are using to get people to shop even if the time they want isn't available.

2. They don't provide drivers with any sort of cart to actually deliver the groceries with. One delivery driver had to lug water bottles and other heavy items from down the street where he could find parking into my building and up to my apartment. Amazon Fresh gives their drivers a handcart to help with deliveries.

3. After several orders of mine were never delivered and Instacart offering a $5 credit (after wasting hours of my time waiting for their large delivery window) I had a driver tell me that drivers get to keep orders that are not delivered and sometimes they pick really good orders and say they couldn't be delivered.

I still use them because it's convenient but wish they would treat their users with more integrity and also manage their delivery drivers better by providing supporting tools like a cart or keeping tabs on drivers that may be taking orders for themselves.

While I was pregnant and stuck at home, I received a bunch of my roommate's 1-2x weekly Instacart deliveries. Without fail the majority of Instacart drivers tried to refuse to go up our one flight of stairs with 1-2 grocery bags. One cursed me out while bringing the bags upstairs. Some left the bags next to the gate. Mostly only women would bring it up without complaining, "you're sooo biiig giiirl go put your feet up!" And then fuck me, we misunderstood the $$$ Instacart fee as a tip so the people doing their jobs didn't get tipped :(

This is omitting the stupid shopping mistakes like 1 leek instead of 1 pound of leeks, and the amazing chat session I had with one shopper that asked me where to find something I'm buying for the first time, at a store I've never been to.

I have never had this problem with Good Eggs, never had this problem with Prime Now, only had it once or twice with Postmates and Caviar. Something's not being incentivized correctly over at Instacart.

The whole model of the shopper walking the isles to pick the products is wrong. It's inefficient and a recipe for disappointment, because what you see on their web page is just a guess at what the store has and the shopper can find.

I too have used Instacart probably 10 times, but never will again. It is also all but guaranteed that Whole Foods will drop Instancart like a hot potato for their own in-house service, so the valuation is completely wrong in my opinion.

Since Instacart remembers these choices across orders, I've found this useful for making sure I get what I need.

They really really need real to have real time inventory for users like me. The shopper model worked when they were just starting off because it allowed them to launch in tons of cities without even the groceries approving but now they need to move to a model where they get the grocery store's inventory; the current method is just plain inefficient.

Amazon WF same day delivery would be picked from WF stores by the people who work in those stores and are trained in those stores, not Joe Random Gig Worker who does not know how swiss chard is different from the rainbow chard, and AMF would do it for no markup to WF price.

Vertical integration in the last mile grocery business would crush anyone who is not vertically integrated. The only way for non vertically-intergrated Instacart to complete is to pivot into SaaS business selling its platform to the independent store operators for something like $1 per order but there's just no way $1 per order software platform would command that valuation.

even if we did not provide value to you (which i apologize for -- it is a priority of ours to improve the replacement experience in particular as it is very frustrating to customers), i am not sure why that implies that we do not provide a valuable service for others and why you would wish ill on us.

perhaps it is because you think of us as an overall unscrupulous company ("shady fees", "mark up everything you buy"), which i would contest -- we strive for transparency when possible (see [1] for screenshots around how we describe the pricing of our service). but the larger point remains -- why do you think that there can only be one victor here, and that is has to be amazon? (or "amazing" as you put it).

right now, amazon is very explicitly coming for the grocery industry -- an $800+ billion industry that is almost 100% offline -- and we are attempting to be one of the (hopefully many) independent companies that enables it online. grocery companies have built amazing fulfillment pipelines and relationships with both farms & customers that we are building a front-end and logistics system for.

anyways, i do not speak for instacart as a company, just for myself as an employee who usually enjoys HN.

[1] https://imgur.com/a/j47ls

I do think the service creates value. But I still hope that, at the very least, it soon faces enough competition that it’s at least forced to be fully transparent about the cost of its service. I want to see one number - the difference between what an order of groceries costs me on Instacart all-in, and what it would cost me to go to the grocery store and purchase the same items myself. As long as I can’t trivially find or calculate that number, I won’t use Instacart again.

and again, we aren't the ones doing the markup -- those are coming from the retailer directly, who may (or may not) mark up prices, which is their prerogative. we put all of our costs in the checkout screen transparently.

So you claim, but since you refuse to list what the IC markup is then it's impossible for us to tell. You're essentially using the retailer markup as an excuse to hide instances of when you do it yourself.

Thus the lack of transparency.

In any given transaction, I have NO idea what the actual % that was added by IC. I do not have this problem with Amazon Prime.

and, in the one case where we do not have a signed relationship with the retailer, we do explicitly note the percentage.

we aren't hiding anything. and, you have that precise problem with amazon prime -- what markup are they charging?

I find that hard to believe. That's the retailer markup? So you're just relying on the 0.01% (I know, arbitrary) where you do, and the opt-out $10 Service Charge to make money?

> "A mark-up is added to item prices at this retailer to cover the cost of the Instacart service. Prices are based on data collected in store and are subject to delays and errors."

There is no good, ethical reason why a delivery service should show me an item price that's different from what's in the store. It's completely ethical if the company wants to say, "The service fee for this store is X% (as a percent of item prices)", or "This store has an additional $X service fee". That is honest and reasonable. I expect a delivery service to quote me the same item price as the retailer quotes in its store.

The reason I have this preference is because of a delivery service's value proposition: shopping in my store, on my behalf. I have access to the same products and can buy them directly. So I want to directly consider the service's value proposition, by considering the service fee I'll need to pay versus buying things myself. (EDIT: Simplify)

instacart is not marking anything up.

edit: it seems clear that we can do better in terms of communicating this, so i've passed that feedback on to the team.

consider changing the messaging there? until now, i was under the impression that the markups were just another way for y'all to make some money off of me.

Intuitively it seems like the store should be more incentivized to offer lower prices to Instacart since they provide a steady stream of business, reliable payment, etc.

The paragraph reads like IC is responsible for the increase, not the retailer itself.

As for the source of the markups, that really doesn’t matter to me. I care about the total difference in cost between using Instacart and going to the grocery store myself, irrespective of who that additional money goes to.

i was mainly noting the source for markups as we cannot tell you that delta -- it's up to the stores to tell us what they want to charge online. we do want to be as transparent as possible! ("possible" being the operative word here)

Transparency to me, would mean I place order and know how much it will cost, instacart mark up, service fees and if a tip is included.

additionally, for virtually all stores on instacart.com now, we are simply passing on the pricing that the retailer has given us (which may or not be marked up from their internal prices -- but we do not control)

edit: to be crystal clear, that means that you are getting exactly what you are asking for -- the prices are simply what the retailer sets (which may be marked up from in-store -- that's their prerogative), and then we show our fees on top of that on checkout. we aren't "hiding" anything, and it's your decision whether the fees are worth your time.

IC is responsible for signing the contracts they have with retailers, IC is also the most visible partner for the end-user. As you can see from this thread, attempts to kick the blame down(up?) the supply chain will only fall on deaf ears.

I know Uber Eats bans restaurants from marking up orders placed through them. You can look at your phone and decide exactly how much extra the delivery costs and then decide if it's worth it to not have to go pick up the food yourself. I've never used instacart but if you're telling me that the price of the service is a secret from me I have a problem would that and would not use it. I don't want to pay $50 to have someone pick up my groceries. But I'd gladly pay $10 on certain days. But I have to know beforehand. I'm not going to sit around and hope Instacart doesn't screw me over today.

If you can get a discount directly from the store, great! You are providing value to them.

1) Receiving the exact items I ordered. 2) The time it takes to show up at my door. 3) The total price beyond what it would cost me in the store.

I know what I pay at the store, I know the value of my time, and I know the cost of driving my car. All I need from Instacart is the total cost for the service presented as simply as possible.

Congrats on the raise and good luck with everything.

I understand some of the frustrations about replacements. Originally the shoppers were pretty good about calling. Recently the app was updated for 1-1 chat and interactive replacement choices. However, it seems the shoppers are to busy to use the feature... I've had a few notifications for replacements, only to click on it and find the shopper has already checked out.

Personally, I accept that limitation of the platform and make sure I choice "no replacement" if there's any chance I'll be disappointed.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the whole concept of online ordering but the IC UI forces users into choices that benefit IC by default.

I’m a “full-service shopper” in a zone without any in-store teams, meaning that I do the shopping and the delivering. Since I’ve started, I have only seen the order commissions steadily deteriorate to the point that they are now about half of what they used to be a year ago.

I can assure you and anyone else reading that the so-called service fee is not going to any of us in the field. And many customers have stopped tipping assuming that the service fee is a tip.

If "service fee" was renamed "instacart fee", people would no longer assume it is the driver's tip. But instacart would never do that, would they?

There's no reason why grocery store employees cannot fill orders - in fact grocery stores that do their own deliveries do exactly that. What those grocery stores lack is a platform to synchronize active inventory in a store and what is displayed which is exactly what Amazon brings to Whole Foods in addition to "intelligent" order routing:

There are three whole foods in Manhattan that are convenient to downtown - however, during the rush our one needs to be an idiot to send an order to the one on 7th Ave rather than the one in Tribeca, which is definitely not the case during the late afternoon.

What really amazes me is that both executives and people who work for companies like Instacart simply stomp their feet and say "But we are different! Why do you hate us?!" rather than address deficiency of the business model. Want to have a shot at competing with AmazonWF? Become a sub of Ahold, Kroger, Albertsons or SuperValu. Otherwise you die.

P.S. I dislike Amazon. I do, however, have to admit that buying WF was a brilliant move.

I guess a more accurate statement would be “now that I’ve discovered amazon prime now is available in my area, I’m excited for the competition between these services to offer me a better quality product at a better price”.

Sorry if I offended. Cheers.

Historically, online businesses have 1/2 winners that "take all". That's assuming the winners could build a warehouse near each city. seems possible.

So the question who will be the one besides Amazon?

From one point of view. Walmart will likely win in the low-cost grocery pickup business. And on top of that they will do deliveries. The way Walmart will choose that delivery is: is it cheaper than delivery costs for Walmart(for chilled deliveries)? and can it scale ? . Does instacart fit ? it seems not.

So it's hard to see how instacart wins.

i am not entirely clear how you arrived at "Does instacart fit ? it seems not.", so it would be good to understand that. we have spent 5 years with hundreds of engineers building a fulfillment/logistics network just for groceries that any grocer can just leverage off the shelf.

Walmart already has grocery warehouses with their stores, so bolting on pickup/delivery to those makes sense. I don't know how much pickup/delivery could potentially negate the need for the store, but I'd assume the pickup/delivery load of a store has huge room for growth before you start questioning why the store needs to be open to the public.

I haven't used their grocery delivery service but their pickup service is well-executed and convenient, in my experience, so I'm assuming they can figure out how to be competent in delivery as well.

For someone in the position of Walmart, and with the many startups that doing delivery, it seems realistic.

As for why do i think Amazon will win the high end? really, the biggest reason is that it's Amazon. But yes, that's not a good enough reason, but still, they win an awful lot.

But maybe there's a chance for instacart to win the higher end, especially by offering the largest variety any merchant can offer.

I'm OK with missing items, I'll just get a refund and deal with it. It's still far far better than dealing with a physical grocery store.

I'm sure there are millions of others like me.

I prefer protecting my time whenever I can (read: I'm lazy) and I've personally found instacart to be an invaluable service. Whether it's a late night wine delivery from BevMo, bulk shopping from Costco (I don't have a membership and almost never remember to bring bags with me to their store), or just the weekly stuff from Safeway/Wholefoods, it's really been a godsend from the POV of saving time that I can repurpose for anything else.

I don't know about the millions comment, but if you're willing to pay a premium for the convenience then it's certainly worth it. I certainly feel that way.

Especially given that wholefoods is now going to deliver direct which was one of the primary uses of instacart (delivery from premium stores), demonstrates that their utility is fading.

Curious. Why do you say that? I use Instacart as a timesaver, or as a way to accomplish what I can't due to other obligations.

I have never used Instacart but it boggles my mind that such an option would exist. It's the sort of thing I might expect to be asked entering a museum or a non-profit community health clinic but why on earth would anyone feel inclined to pay extra to fund a for profit private company beyond any required charges?

I do agree about the fees, which I always unchecked and I always tipped the driver in cash despite Instacart urging me not to. In my case the driver was also the shopper on every delivery, but I understand that's not how it always works and tipping cash is a bad idea when they're different people.

Not sure if it’s possible in prime now (could not find it) but I like the option in Instacart to describe an item you need which is not present in their directory, it saved me lots of times when something is not listed on prime now and I can just request it using Instacart, worked perfectly for me every time

To be fair, Amazon Prime also does this.

I occasionally use Instacart just to see if its improved. But I hardly trust them to get everything I want, and I'm surprised when an order goes without a hitch. Probably not the surprise they are looking for when trying to "surprise and delight".

The fee structure is weird, agreed.

i used it a few months ago, and there was no checkbox (it was mandatory)

>Blatant tip stealing.

[...]

>Plus they mark up everything you buy, and obfuscate this

?

Do you ask Whole Foods what they pay for bananas? Do you care what the markup is at Walmart? Who cares how much InstaCart is charging.

If you're pinching pennies, InstaCart isn't a service for you.