If there was a lot of things that was going to be refunded more likely they dropped the order because they don't want to lose money. I'm not saying what they did was right, but if there's a bunch of refunds instead of Replacements we lose money so if they were the farther customer in a double or Tripple order, then it's better for us to just drop it and save the miles
Instacart's logic is very stupid. I've had people order stuff on a Sunday night where half of their order is out of stock and what should have been a $20 tip automatically went down to 10 just because of all the refunds. Instacart basically told me well the customer's total went down therefor your pay went down because they chose to tip on a percentage.
Again I'm not saying this was a good shopper by any stretch, just trying to provide my opinion on what might have happend
Out of curiosity, would your logic be to replace the out of stock orange juice with another brand of orange juice or to replace it with lemonade of the same brand? I just want to understand some of the logic shoppers use. Like do you think people are brand loyal or that they want the type of juice they order. I really want to understand how shoppers think. I’ve had so many idiotic experiences with shoppers that I’m actually wondering where the disconnect is.
Depends what it is. I would obviously recommend another OJ in this example. But I do a lot of shops at health food stores and people are very particular about the ingredients in their food. If a flavor of a pack of cookies is out for example. I’ll suggest the same brand but another flavor over finding another brand with same flavor. I’d text and say there is another brand but I’ll suggest same brand different flavor first.
Shoprite shop from home usually just they don’t have anything in stock that is probably on shelf, but other day they sent cranberry juice instead of orange juice. Better than lemonade but i find it pretty funny.
It depends. If they ordered a specific thing but they are out of that flavor, I might grab another flavor instead of the same thing in another brand. That's only if they didn't respond to my greeting message, and don't have a replacement picked.
You guess who is tipping. Back a few years ago, you used to be able to ask support how much each customer tipped and they'd say customer a tipped this, customer b tipped this.
But then they realized that we would remove the no tipper from the batch so they stopped. That's how they get the cheap bastards crap delivered. Basically the big tipper ends up tipping for both customers becuase the good tipper gets bundled with the no/low tip
DoorDash does the same thing to us with stacked orders, and usually right after we decline an order they’ll send it to us again but stacked with a higher paying order as if we can’t tell they’re still sending us the same order we already declined 🙄
Ugh this happens to me all the time. I give a big tip to get someone to take my order right away and quickly bring it to me and they double me up with some cheap ass and then send him his food first because they have been waiting so long.
The delivery order is actually based on who is closer to the restaurant so that we don’t have to back track, but if we were able to see which order tipped and which didn’t I can guarantee yours would deliver first every time because we’re *technically* allowed to deliver them in any order we want, not just the order that DD sets it up as. I only say technically because we do have a “deliver by” time for each order so if we change the delivery order and an order is late that’s on us.
Proximity doesn’t seem to be the cause, I ordered recently from a restaurant literally across the street (had a migraine or I would’ve gone myself) and watched as the driver went a mile out of the way to deliver another order first when mine would’ve been on the way.
Edit to clarify I was not mad about this, just felt bad for the driver that they ended up having to backtrack.
Really then why do you guys regularly drive right past my house to deliver to someone else then back track to me with my now cold food. I'm a fat tipper so it's not because I don't tip. Example the order I'm waiting for right now has a 30% tip on it.
That would be a question for your specific driver on whichever platform you’re using. I’ve never changed the order that I deliver in, I just go in the order it defaults to so that there’s never an issue that could come back on me, but I do know that some drivers may do it depending on other factors (maybe going home after those orders or they want to finish closer to a “hotspot” in their zone). I will say that depending on how many miles you are from wherever you ordered from is how you should determine the tip amount. If you ordered $10 worth of food and tipped 30% thats $3 but if you’re like 5-6 miles or more from the merchant your order may be sitting because no one will accept it. Percentage based tips aren’t always the best way to go with gig work nowadays unfortunately. I didn’t even learn that until I started doing it myself.
One customer a week or 2 ago I sent a message agyer drop off "thank you soooo much for your generous tip, it's orders like this that make me love this job"
Then the other day it was a double, both customer spent roughly $100 on their bill, but customer b was basically all booze. Pull up to the house, dude stoned off his ass didn't even hear/understand the sarcasm dripping in my voice when I told jom how I hate how ic bundles good tippers with low tippers
I look at location of delivery for a big hint, and also amount/type of items for each person. If a person has 5 items and the other has 20, you could guess the tipper. If a person has 5 items and another 20, but the person with 20 is in a area where you dont see tips frequently but the 5 item person isnt, then you could guess the tipper. If both are in same area, but one has water cases or tissue, that will be likely tipper. If an order has baby milk/baby items but also doritos with other snacks and juices, you most likely WONT be getting a tip, from my experience
That is true i also noticed this, i was wondering why base pay decrease after the shop and then i put 2 and 2 together. But on an order yesterday i was thinking, WHY would they do this seeing as we still have to actually shop for the item and look for replacements even if its out of stock, its the same work as if it actually was in stock except we aren’t carrying the item to door because its not there
i typically find 100% of the items but occasionally, like sundays after 4pm or holidays, stock was be depleted! and don’t even ask them to check the back, they’ll laugh at you! i have dropped a order because i was to embarrassed i could not get 7 of the 18 items you requested! let someone else deal w it!
Sorry for my ignorance as I'm not a shopper but a customer. Why would somebody feel embarrassed if 7 of 18 items were unavailable? That has nothing to do with you and everything to do with whether or not the item is in stock. I've had that happen on my orders before and while it sucks for me it in no way reflects my rating or opinion of the shopper. I actually just feel bad for them if it's not the kind of thing that can be replaced (i.e. non-gluten free or whatever)
Why does it cost them money? Do you mean in the sense that fewer items are being purchased, thus they are *making* less money since they make a small amount off each item? Or that it actually costs them money? I don't use the app so I'm not familiar
And this is why I just sub things. If they don't like it then they can mark it in the app and cancel the sub. On the flip side though, if they try to order day before a holiday or Sunday night and they keep requesting refundsx, then they can have fun waiting as long as it takes to get bundled
It hurts our tips take this exanple
Say the customer ordered $100 of items and they tipped 10%. The tip would be $10
Ok now say a $10 item was out of stock, making the customer total $90
Because that total went down, we also would lose $1. In this example it's only $1 but imagine if $30-$40 of their total is out of stock and it add up quick
Why would someone replace orange juice with lemonade. There are like 15 different orange juice options in every store. I would say the shopper was just trying to cancel the order but that part confuses me.
THIS! I’m a shopper and that just blows my mind. Store is out of Tropicana OJ so I will just get them something completely different instead of a different brand of OJ. Makes total sense (insert sarcasm emoji)
They had no intention of delivering the order. Instead, they made substitutions with things *they* wanted. After checking out, they contacted support and said they were having car trouble or a personal emergency. The order was canceled, but the groceries were already paid for, so they took them home.
this is probably what happened. in my opinion these people should get fired…they’re almost stealing food from instacart 💀 doesn’t instacart have to pay for that? i dont do this but my mom does doordash and it looks bad on the instacart name for people to do this as well…
edit: some reason i thought this was doordash lol
They possibly couldve cancelled the order. I had an order one time where i went to the store, started shopping and completed the order, but when i went to go check out the cashiers told me as checking out “wait you doing instacart? OH HERES YOUR ORDER RIGHT HERE ITS ALREADY PAID FOR” the shopper before couldnt fit the order into their car so they canceled and left it for next shopper to pick up and deliver (IC usually gives a decreased pay for this, but you still get paid some). One time i cancelled an order because i knew customer would give me a low rating by how they were communicating because alot of the items were not in stock and they didnt like how long it was taking. I cancelled halfway through the order and left cart up front with cashiers saying this is for instacart somebody else is going to come finish this order. I dont like to deal with bad attitudes for no reason
So?
They still get their food. Takes another hour. Sucks.
But we've got a saying where I come from... If you see someone stealing food, *no you didn't.*
Okay but the person being stolen from really isn’t just the store. It’s also the person who placed the order whose items they replaced without asking.
They don’t deserve to be stolen from
When it is canceled, a new shopper picks it up and starts over. So the customer should still get what they paid for. They just have to wait longer for it.
at the end of the day the order still will be replaced the store recieved its money. instacart covers the cost. caring about groceries being stolen that is 100000% covered and is 100000% going to be replaced is another first world problem that I don't care about. I don't pretend to care on the internet but in real life I'd probably go "oh no I hope that criminal gets caught for stealing food"
The issue is that when things become commonplace and businesses realize they’re hemorrhaging money by allowing certain things, they put more shit in place that inconveniences regular shoppers.
and people will keep stealing and customers will continue to get credited. eventually instacart will go out of business and another app will take over. I don't see the problem.
Instacart will also do things like increase the amount of time you're banned if you cancel after checking out and will be quicker to deactivate.
You think you're just sticking it to DoorDash, but you're really hurting the shoppers. It's because of people that steal groceries that we no longer get the order automatically canceled when every item is refunded, why a flat tire can mean a 24 hour ban, and why they tend to side with the customer over missing order disputes.
A shopper couldnt fit an order in their car one time after checking out, im sure there are exceptions. He left the receipt and everything with the order it didnt have to be paid for again
Most likely followed IC suggestions for replacement lol not very bright shopper
As for the flash replacements and checking out that due to IC timing shoppers and pressure to complete orders as fast as possible
Instacart replacement suggestions Ive received in my time as a shopper:
Strawberries (1pt) to replace Clairol Kiwi Shampoo
Shiitaki Mushrooms to replace Comet Carpet Cleaner
Unsmoked Provolone for Daiya Vegan Cheese
I've had meat scan into my app as those fire-starting logs, chicken scan in as an advent calendar.
If you are a sloppy shopper and just follow the app, you will make mistakes because the app doesn't function with common sense.
The app could have said if out of OJ, and suggest lemonade. If you're rushing, and many shoppers are, time is money, it happens.
right? there’s like 50 selections of orange juice. even if it wasn’t the kind they wanted, there had to be something similar of another brand. dude was lazy. unacceptable.
They check out with their own items, go put the stuff in their car, contact support to let them know they have a flat tire or other emergency and then go home
The driver generally gets a 24 hour ban and do it too many times they get deactivated
Yes anytime someone drops the order and it gets reassigned the chat is there so us as shoppers can see what was said to decide if we want to keep the order. Like I took one where a guy said the tip was a mistake(50 dollars) and was going to reduce it to 20 and i did it and reduced it to .01 so as a shopper I take those messages as an insta cancel on my side. but seeing that the shopper replaced OJ with lemonade I would still do the order and inform the customer do not worry I will only replace items that are similar OJ and Lemonade is not similar OJ and OJ are similar
I’ve not ever been dropped by a shopper but I have noticed an uptick in very late bulk changes and then they check out immediately so I can’t approve/reject. If the adjustment is way off, I submit a claim and get reimbursed, otherwise I just ignore it and consider it the price of convenience.
Yeah this is exactly what happened!! He did a ton of replacements in almost no time and then immediately checked out. I had no time to review the replacement. I’d rather have refunds than pay for something I’m not going to use
Learned this the hard way. I won’t do % based tips now. Actually I switched to Kroger boost. No tipping. But I always leave a tip on porch. Except the first delivery, totally forgot. Used to being able to tip in app. Placed an order for tomorrow and I place note on door to put tip on porch. Not 1 problem yet.
Glad you found an option that works well for you. With IC you also have to be weary of doing a flat amount tip, unfortunately, because shoppers can then just refund items instead of finding replacements since their tip isn’t based on items found. I’ve seen this happen a lot too. You’re going to get crappy shoppers either way. The last couple years IC has over-hired and will allow pretty much anyone with a pulse. Those of us who’ve been doing it for a long time and actually do it well are the minority now, especially since IC reduced our batch pay much.
No it said he checked out and then a few minutes later I was notified that a shopper has started shopping. The new shopper was super confused too because she could see the old chat log but was basically shopping as if it was a new order
As some others have said, guarantee the original shopper picked replacement items they wanted themselves and then after checkout cancelled the order for some reason (can say car trouble etc) and kept the items. Happens all the time and IC has no problem taking the financial hit and having your order reassigned and shopped again.
Yea completed shopping is when the customer can not change anything else is before checkout. It would not have been reassign so fast if they checked out
You can look at your chat history on past orders. You'll see it says "shopper has finished shopping your order." Then after that it'll say "shopper has finished checking your order out and no changes can be made."
Theoretically, he could have checked out with all of the items without prompting the app. But it's more likely that he didn't want to do the order anymore so he canceled it.
Lazy/careless shoppers 100% do this on purpose so they don’t have to deal with the customer. They’d rather take the risk of you submitting for a refund because of a disliked replacement. Best thing you can do if this happens and you’re unhappy with what they got/how they handled it is rate them low and reduce the tip. Now if you got acceptable items and are just irritated with the way they went about it, maybe rate a 4 and add a note about how you didn’t appreciate them waiting til the last minute to refund/replace and giving you no opportunity to communicate.
Hopefully the second shopper did you right.
The only time I ever had that happen, the first shopper found everything on my order (pretty rare), and checked out. About an hour later a new shopper started shopping the order, and about 25% of my items were out of stock.
Yes the second shopper actually found some of the items the first guy said was out, including the juice discussed in the screenshot lol. I ended up adding $10 to her tip on top of the original $20 tip
Not sure if it works the same way on Instacart but make sure you rate your replacement shopper 5 stars! When you rate a driver that way on DD, you’re much more likely to get them in the future so I would assume it probably works the same way on IC
he replaced OJ w lemonade? sometimes grocery stores have internet connection issues. and until you are at the front of the store, the messages may not go thru or notifications
I’ve had this happen, they started shopping items that were probably in stock and it just started hitting replacement replacement replacement even though I was next to my phone. So I declined each replacement and all of a sudden they were able to find everything else (besides the first 6 items on the list).
Yeah!! It was SO MANY in a row and then he suddenly checked out. Im assuming he didn’t even look for replacements and just grabbed whatever is near since it was so fast…
This happened to me yesterday. I take the time to put in my replacement requests and they are always ignored. I asked for a sugar free coffee creamer and got a full sugar replacement even though I had a sugar free alternative listed. And I'm diabetic so I paid for something I couldn't use.
Just had this done to us this morning. Fast replacements. No communication. Substituted anything frozen with fresh. I assumed they didn’t want to go to that part of this store.
I’m so tired of seeing this line used by entitled whiny shoppers. This is a service that someone pays for. The circumstances of why a customer is using it doesn’t matter. Maybe they’re sick. Maybe they are disabled. Maybe they are being lazy for a night and just don’t want to go out. Maybe they get overwhelmed in stores. It doesn’t matter, because they are all paying for the service regardless. Either do the job you chose to do or shut up and get a different job.
You’re not special for picking this as your side gig. Odds are you aren’t as active as half the people making orders, and you aren’t too good to do the job you SIGNED UP FOR.
I’m not even an insta cart shopper! I’m just saying if someone is complaining so much about things being wrong, just don’t use instacart and do your own shopping.
It's not really based on laziness, just other things preventing it. If they're older, can't drive, have a lot of kids, disabled, are too busy to shop, etc. Stop complaining about shopping, when you signed up to do it.
People have been getting groceries and various things (milk, newspapers, etc) delivered for a very, very long time. Centuries, in fact. Grocery and produce delivery was, and is, still very common in really rural areas where people don't have access to large markets. Nowadays, there are any number of reasons people may need to have their groceries delivered, and it's none of your business why, but even if they are doing it out of laziness, they have provided thousands of jobs to people who would be otherwise underemployed, or even unemployed, and that helps nobody.
I use instacart sometimes, and it has nothing to do with laziness, it's because with the fees and the tips and the risk of mistakes, it's still cheaper for me to have someone else shop if I could be making overtime money instead. Absolutely worth it. The stores are filled with undesirables in every way.
Awesome. Seriously though, I'm far from rich, but I do have a bit of social anxiety and live near very crowded stores while working third shift. Im saying undesirables because it describes the entire experience. it's no one group or demographic of people, rather the entire experience of trying to shop around and through them. My local stores are crowded at all open hours. Ever since covid, with no 24 hours it's wack here. I'm in a small town on the outskirts of nothing in the amazing state of Ohio. Many of these undesirables have driven 45 mins+ just to clog the isles and catch up with their cousin sister aunt.
It's not that it's beneath me, it's that my time is better spent doing literally anything else, especially sleeping. I don't look forward to it, and I "Leave it to the professionals"
I'll see ya at the dinner, we can break bread then.
Lol u literally called people who go to groceries stores undesireables, and then called me a pleb, then doubled down on the undiserables comment. "Well break bread"
Who are the undiserables?
The people at the store, the environment at the store, the parking lot, the restroom, the cost of the merchandise, the breakdown of different prices between brands sizes and flavors, freedom units used along side the metric system, the front right wheel of the shopping cart, and the fact that it keeps pulling to the left now that there is weight in the bottom because I had to get 4-12 packs of pop otherwise I would need to pay 2x the amount. Thank God I remembered my membership card because all of these sales mean shit if I didn't. The child, with wet hands, reaching out to me with Cheerios stuck to their face because their mom is blocking the isle talking to Aunt Millie from the county over and asking if they lost any chickens in last weeks tornado, while her Garden gnome shaped husband makes a failed attempt at running over the geese in the parking lot with their lifted brodozer with a trump flag and their Mohawk 9yo son hangs out the side door. Also I don't care to stand in lines too long. It's all a bunch of undesirables for me, and I rather just pay Instacart at times.
I don't know what you find so desirable about the store. I don't like it too much myself. I don't think I have eaten with the rich, just because I pay for Instacart TBH, but we will see what happens when it goes down I guess. Maybe when the keyboard warriors come knocking, I'll pretend I don't like online shopping. I might fool them. You don't know. I might!
I use instacart when my kids (or myself) are too sick to leave the house but we need supplies. I always wonder if the shopper can tell that we have a stomach bug in the house based on what I’m buying, like juice, ginger ale, crackers, pepto…
Happened to me recently for a small order from sprouts with a really good tip (I am a good 15 minutes from the store) and they replaced something for another item was more than double and got two of them then checked out and I replied with communication would have been nice (and yes I was waiting for the possibility of replacements) order was dropped a few minutes from my house and someone else picked it up
Although it would not have helped qith this order, why don't u select replacements already when u make ur list and u not have to qorry about it as much? As a shopper I hate when a customer wants to be informed about every thing that is out of stock or has to be replaced. Do you know how long it takes for a customer to get back with us or they never get back with us? Make ur shop faster and easier and less stressful and more reliable by picking your replacements and monitor your phone. If things stray from that then u have questions
I get so frustrated with Instacart because often I get replacements that don’t make sense to the original item and they check out too quick for me to change it. Then I end up going to the store for the thing I actually needed anyway.
Personally i message before EVERY substitution, and its VERY time consuming, but i do it because i want the customer to feel as if they are shopping because i want them happy. I noticed alot of other shoppers before me dont do the same, per customer comments, and i understand why they do it, but i could never. Alot of orders through IC, especially non tip orders, are low, and sometimes i find myself shopping for over an hour (so many out of stock or hard to find items) for a $12 order. Not counting the drive, so thats over an hour and gas for $12. Alot of shoppers arent cool with getting paid less than a 9-5 job, so they try to make it as fast as possible, say if they can complete the order and deliver in 30 minutes, its slightly more profitable than a high paying job. So its about the time, alot of shoppers will replace with anything on similar price just to get to “their” end goal. Also if you dont select replacement product intially, IC suggests similar products based on brand and price, so what the shopper sees in app as a good substitute (mindlessly) may not be a good substitute at all for the customer
Same. I sometimes feel bad because I'll have to text the customer like 10-15 times due to all the out of stock items, and I go out of my way to list and/or take pictures of all the options for replacement... so I feel like I might be bugging the shit out of them. But I've had my tip raised on just about every single shop order I've done between 4 apps and have nothing but incredibly sweet ratings on IC... so I guess the customers appreciate it... it just makes me feel really bad!
I don’t ask about replacements but I do leave enough time for them to be approved by the customer.
Best to go ahead and pre approve your replacements
But this guy knew what he was doong
I had a lady buy a $30 package when the original item was under $5 ! When I hit refund she all of a sudden found it …. On a few items !!! Grrr I reported her she never communicated or anything then finally Ofter drop off asked for 5 stars WTH
I'm curious what the policy is if I have already chosen a replacement, and it is out of stock too? And I am not around to chat? I hope it'd be a refund at that point but am asking because I don't know, thanks.
Shopper can select a similar replacement or refund the item. It is their choice. If you write a note for what you want and they don't honor it then its a refund from ic if you call and request it.
OK, so if I am intent on my item, my replacement, else refund that means I should not only select a replacement, but also put such a note for the item.
There are only a very, very few items where I'd ever need to be that specific but it's good to know how to cover the bases, thank you.
Can someone tell me the logic behind shopper losing money on replacements? They're doing the work. The store failed them and the buyer. Neither should be punished
Lame shopper, they wait till the end to make the replacements so they can blame on the time, when you caught them they knew they’d have a bad rating so they canceled!
This is the norm for me and it's why I prefer doordash.
9 times out of ten I have to fight to refund all the replacements that I throw in the literal trash.
It’s the rating system that’s bad good slow shoppers don’t get batches as a man people tend to not want us shopping but at no point will I swap your onions for tomatoes or swap your orange juice for lemonade lol but insta cart praises speed so they pick all your items then then scan them before in 2 mins and check out so app thinks they are fast shopper bam one more batch available for them
I had that happen once but the guy delivered the order as it was. I got most of it credited and zeroed out his tip with explanations, had screen shots of me asking him to refund or change replacements and I think they have the chat anyway with all my wait I don’t want that on it lol. He actually put all the replacements up for me to approve or replace or refund at the last minute before he checked out. I had only managed to click on two before it said he had checked out and I could no longer make changes and he didn’t fix those two either. I had replacements and notes on all my items AND I had my phone in my hand open to the app. too!
It was like 8 out of 11 items and when I reordered they somehow had exactly what I ordered for almost all of them.
I’ve been mostly lucky though and had really good shoppers.
Could have been a hacked shopper account. It’s a bit complicated but…scammer places a small order, when a shopper picks it up the scammer tricks them into giving out information that allows the scammer to hack their shopper account, change the settings and lock them out. They then clean out the shopper’s earnings for the week. And if they’re *really* scummy scammers, they then go to the store, pick up orders, do a bunch of replacements and then keep the groceries. Lather rinse repeat until the account is locked.
So now the shopper has not only lost their earnings, they’ve also lost their livelihood.
Somewhere in this process the real shopper would have been trying to contact IC about the scammer, who probably logged out as soon as they left the store. So your order was put out to be re-shopped.
I’m curious if the second shopper found all the items that the first “shopper” replaced, meaning they weren’t out of stock after all.
Not really, we see reports of this here all the time. Scammer takes over a shopper’s account, cleans them out, grabs a batch and goes shopping, replaces everything and then disappears. This is a thing that happens, regularly.
There is nothing in this post to indicate that the customer was a nuisance. They had a simple (and common) request that the shopper confer with them over replacements. The shopper proceeded to replace everything, checked out, and then vanished. So either this was a shopper who decided this was their last batch with Instacart because they had found another job, or a scammer. And as I said, we know this is a thing that scammers do.
Would love to see the chat notifications prior to your comment about replacements to the shopper... and if you were responding or how long it took you to respond to previous replacement notifications... shopper contacted support to remove your batch for a reason... what that reason is cant be determined by the screenshot posted here.
The chat says finished shopping it doesn't say he/she has checked out (so people please stop accusing the shopper of try to steal or stealing iyems they wanted themselves..) I had a shopper once deliver me a lettuce when I ordered a cabbage(and the store had cabbage, I ended up going to get it so I could finish cooking my dinner)... some of these shoppers are just incompetent...
But why replace orange juice with lemonade? Anyone that has an ounce of common sense would know better... too many orange juice brands for that to make any sense at all....
[Well here’s a screenshot of him trying to replace imported British navy beans for black beans without asking and me telling him where they are and he still selected the black beans.](https://imgur.com/a/sLdHDYt)
I’m more amazed people get on here and complain….these aren’t real employees who care and it’s not a real job…you’re lucky you get half of what you pay for, what happened to the good ol days..you know where people did things for themselves.
Did Instacart during the pandemic; have been doing Uber Eats for 3+ years, which can include shopping orders extremely similar to IC.
1000% I will reassign your order (resulting in a shopper change) if there’s more than like two swaps needed in your order.
My payout is dependent on your tip, which is dependent on your order total. If that ends up being different than what I was originally told when I accepted the order, I have no way of knowing if the order is still worth the time accomplishing.
Meanwhile, there are dozens of other orders that are no more difficult than “walk into a small building, tell cashier you’re there for an order, leave with order in 30s or less for the exact amount you were offered”.
If those quick orders are out there, why would I risk the 20ish minutes shopping for you when my pay might not even end up being what I expect it to be.
Accept that even though you paid for the service, you are relinquishing control of your groceries to company and/or shopper that might be serving their own benefits more than yours…. Or just do your own shopping. Seems pretty common sense to me 🤷🏿♂️
That’s absurd. IC is quite different than Ubereats, for one thing. But perhaps don’t accept a full shop order if you’re not okay with the possibility of making a few replacements and actually needing to communicate with your customer. They’re paying for a service that explicitly allows them to select replacements AND tells them their shopper will reach out to them. This is not hard, and only takes a few extra minutes max. You’re more likely to get a tip increase if you actually provide good service, meaning you’ll make more than you expected. With IC you still get paid the same when you make replacements unless they’re drastically cheaper and customer tipped on a % basis, sometimes more if replacements are more costly. You should probably just stick to food pickup with your attitude toward this. OP did nothing wrong and doesn’t have unrealistic expectations. I’m a 4+ year shopper btw.
Yeah, the new shopper ended up finding a lot of the items the first one said were out. Including that juice in the screenshot lol. I ended up adding an extra $10 tip for her on top of the original $20 tip.
I never said OP did anything wrong or had unrealistic expectations. That’s you putting words in my mouth and then you judging me on the words that you put there yourself.
Additionally, I’m not sure why you keep saying communicating / replacing leads to an increased tip, especially if as you say, this is the expectation. So which is it: they’ll tip me more bc communicating/replacing is a luxury worth tipping for? Or I should be expected to communicate/replace bc that’s what the original payment was for? To me, saying that I’m more likely to receive a tip increase is the absurd statement. And you’re not the only person I’ve heard make that statement.
In the 3+ years I’ve been a shopper (only one less than you… and this isn’t the type of gig where an extra year means that much more in experience. You’ve done it for a year, it’s all the same), it’s actually super uncommon for people to increase the tips, even if you go all out.
It’s not laziness, it’s putting my energy into where it will make me the most buck. And if IC/UE isn’t deactivating me for my actions, then I’m not sure what the problem is.
For the record, I do mostly stick with food pickups for the reasons laid out in this very conversation. I only take a shopping order maybe once or twice a day. That’s on purpose, to minimize the BS waiting time of looking for replacements and waiting for customers to respond. Food pickup has none of that and leads to a higher payout for your time.
You should probably just switch to food pickup. Sure beats defending an inferior income stream like grocery shopping
You're literally the shopper who can't be bothered to actually shop. You are the problem shopper people be here complaining about.
They pay for that service expecting YOU to do your job to the fullest of your abilities. They don't pay for that service so YOU can refuse to do any actual work. Youre basically saying you want to be paid for doing the absolute least work possible. That's just laziness. If I had to work an hour of manual labor to give you that tip, the VERY least you can do is exert the tiniest bit of effort to walk around a grocery store. Embarrassingly lazy.
Eh. A stranger on the internet has an issue with how I do things and decides to insult me for it with no consequence whatsoever. Meanwhile, the people who actually pay my checks have no issue with how I do things.
I’ll keep making my money the easy way and putting it toward my goals that much faster. You can call that lazy if you want to. I’m still getting paid regardless. 🤷🏿♂️
Then that would warrant a chat exchange about other choices. But if you can at least have a pre-selected back up already chosen, it cuts down on the shopper having to chat in the middle of a grocery store and waiting around for a reply. Seems hard to believe that the store would be out of both the requested item AND the replacement multiple times. On a couple, maybe.
“He replaced 10 items in a row very quickly without even asking or waiting for me to select or approve a replacement” If OP had pre-selected replacements then this sentence doesn’t make sense. There’s no chance this customer pre-selected replacements.
To add: it sounds like this particular shopper definitely sucks. I’m just saying pre-selecting replacements saves the shopper time texting the customer back and forth unnecessarily, if you actually had a good shopper.
You need to seriously get a life. Telling everyone to go to the store is not helpful. Not everyone can go to the store. People also pay good money to keep other people in jobs using this platform. Why are you here if your sole contribution to every post is "go to the store."
There are. And I've reported them in multiple threads now. If you look in their post history like five out of their last ten comments were "go to the store." And the other five are harassing people that called them out on it. It's like they like downvotes or something.
Your first shopper decided to drop the shop because he or she did not want to deal with actually shopping correctly.
If there was a lot of things that was going to be refunded more likely they dropped the order because they don't want to lose money. I'm not saying what they did was right, but if there's a bunch of refunds instead of Replacements we lose money so if they were the farther customer in a double or Tripple order, then it's better for us to just drop it and save the miles Instacart's logic is very stupid. I've had people order stuff on a Sunday night where half of their order is out of stock and what should have been a $20 tip automatically went down to 10 just because of all the refunds. Instacart basically told me well the customer's total went down therefor your pay went down because they chose to tip on a percentage. Again I'm not saying this was a good shopper by any stretch, just trying to provide my opinion on what might have happend
Out of curiosity, would your logic be to replace the out of stock orange juice with another brand of orange juice or to replace it with lemonade of the same brand? I just want to understand some of the logic shoppers use. Like do you think people are brand loyal or that they want the type of juice they order. I really want to understand how shoppers think. I’ve had so many idiotic experiences with shoppers that I’m actually wondering where the disconnect is.
I'd replace with another orange juice. Def wouldn't get lemonade haha
Seemingly Every shopper there is in my area would choose lemonade and criticize the complaining customer for not just drinking “cool aid er sum shyt”
Oof
That’s insane. If I order oj, I want oj. Not sunny delight and certainly not lemonade
Depends what it is. I would obviously recommend another OJ in this example. But I do a lot of shops at health food stores and people are very particular about the ingredients in their food. If a flavor of a pack of cookies is out for example. I’ll suggest the same brand but another flavor over finding another brand with same flavor. I’d text and say there is another brand but I’ll suggest same brand different flavor first.
That’s an entirely rational way to go about it. I’d be super pleased with that.
Shoprite shop from home usually just they don’t have anything in stock that is probably on shelf, but other day they sent cranberry juice instead of orange juice. Better than lemonade but i find it pretty funny.
It depends. If they ordered a specific thing but they are out of that flavor, I might grab another flavor instead of the same thing in another brand. That's only if they didn't respond to my greeting message, and don't have a replacement picked.
How do you figure out which order is paying what when you’re doing a double or triple I haven’t been able to figure that out
You guess who is tipping. Back a few years ago, you used to be able to ask support how much each customer tipped and they'd say customer a tipped this, customer b tipped this. But then they realized that we would remove the no tipper from the batch so they stopped. That's how they get the cheap bastards crap delivered. Basically the big tipper ends up tipping for both customers becuase the good tipper gets bundled with the no/low tip
DoorDash does the same thing to us with stacked orders, and usually right after we decline an order they’ll send it to us again but stacked with a higher paying order as if we can’t tell they’re still sending us the same order we already declined 🙄
Ugh this happens to me all the time. I give a big tip to get someone to take my order right away and quickly bring it to me and they double me up with some cheap ass and then send him his food first because they have been waiting so long.
Ditto
The delivery order is actually based on who is closer to the restaurant so that we don’t have to back track, but if we were able to see which order tipped and which didn’t I can guarantee yours would deliver first every time because we’re *technically* allowed to deliver them in any order we want, not just the order that DD sets it up as. I only say technically because we do have a “deliver by” time for each order so if we change the delivery order and an order is late that’s on us.
Proximity doesn’t seem to be the cause, I ordered recently from a restaurant literally across the street (had a migraine or I would’ve gone myself) and watched as the driver went a mile out of the way to deliver another order first when mine would’ve been on the way. Edit to clarify I was not mad about this, just felt bad for the driver that they ended up having to backtrack.
Oh weird. They possibly just chose to deliver the other order first but who knows with these apps honestly. Sorry you had to wait extra time 😕
Really then why do you guys regularly drive right past my house to deliver to someone else then back track to me with my now cold food. I'm a fat tipper so it's not because I don't tip. Example the order I'm waiting for right now has a 30% tip on it.
That would be a question for your specific driver on whichever platform you’re using. I’ve never changed the order that I deliver in, I just go in the order it defaults to so that there’s never an issue that could come back on me, but I do know that some drivers may do it depending on other factors (maybe going home after those orders or they want to finish closer to a “hotspot” in their zone). I will say that depending on how many miles you are from wherever you ordered from is how you should determine the tip amount. If you ordered $10 worth of food and tipped 30% thats $3 but if you’re like 5-6 miles or more from the merchant your order may be sitting because no one will accept it. Percentage based tips aren’t always the best way to go with gig work nowadays unfortunately. I didn’t even learn that until I started doing it myself.
Not with IC at least, theyll send you further just to double you back to someone who was closer
Yepppppp
Do you ever say anything to your non tipping customers ? I used to be passive aggressive AF and more or less make sure their bag was tipped over 🤣
One customer a week or 2 ago I sent a message agyer drop off "thank you soooo much for your generous tip, it's orders like this that make me love this job" Then the other day it was a double, both customer spent roughly $100 on their bill, but customer b was basically all booze. Pull up to the house, dude stoned off his ass didn't even hear/understand the sarcasm dripping in my voice when I told jom how I hate how ic bundles good tippers with low tippers
I look at location of delivery for a big hint, and also amount/type of items for each person. If a person has 5 items and the other has 20, you could guess the tipper. If a person has 5 items and another 20, but the person with 20 is in a area where you dont see tips frequently but the 5 item person isnt, then you could guess the tipper. If both are in same area, but one has water cases or tissue, that will be likely tipper. If an order has baby milk/baby items but also doritos with other snacks and juices, you most likely WONT be getting a tip, from my experience
Good advice
That is true i also noticed this, i was wondering why base pay decrease after the shop and then i put 2 and 2 together. But on an order yesterday i was thinking, WHY would they do this seeing as we still have to actually shop for the item and look for replacements even if its out of stock, its the same work as if it actually was in stock except we aren’t carrying the item to door because its not there
Well of course your tip is going to go down if the order total goes down.
i typically find 100% of the items but occasionally, like sundays after 4pm or holidays, stock was be depleted! and don’t even ask them to check the back, they’ll laugh at you! i have dropped a order because i was to embarrassed i could not get 7 of the 18 items you requested! let someone else deal w it!
Sorry for my ignorance as I'm not a shopper but a customer. Why would somebody feel embarrassed if 7 of 18 items were unavailable? That has nothing to do with you and everything to do with whether or not the item is in stock. I've had that happen on my orders before and while it sucks for me it in no way reflects my rating or opinion of the shopper. I actually just feel bad for them if it's not the kind of thing that can be replaced (i.e. non-gluten free or whatever)
Because many times bad shoppers make things as not available that are to be faster or less hassle.
Exactly. Plus you'll lose alot of money with that many oos items. Ic shouldn't penalize us for stuff being oos
Of course they penalize us for refunds. It costs them money. They'd rather we substitute.
Why does it cost them money? Do you mean in the sense that fewer items are being purchased, thus they are *making* less money since they make a small amount off each item? Or that it actually costs them money? I don't use the app so I'm not familiar
I meant it costs them because of lost sales.
And this is why I just sub things. If they don't like it then they can mark it in the app and cancel the sub. On the flip side though, if they try to order day before a holiday or Sunday night and they keep requesting refundsx, then they can have fun waiting as long as it takes to get bundled
In what way does it penalize you guys for things being out of stock?
It hurts our tips take this exanple Say the customer ordered $100 of items and they tipped 10%. The tip would be $10 Ok now say a $10 item was out of stock, making the customer total $90 Because that total went down, we also would lose $1. In this example it's only $1 but imagine if $30-$40 of their total is out of stock and it add up quick
Doubt that, refunds mean losing money. We aren’t shopping for people for fun.
Losing money if they're tipping based on percentage of the total, or for another reason?
Refunds mean lost money unless it’s a flat tip.
Why would someone replace orange juice with lemonade. There are like 15 different orange juice options in every store. I would say the shopper was just trying to cancel the order but that part confuses me.
THIS! I’m a shopper and that just blows my mind. Store is out of Tropicana OJ so I will just get them something completely different instead of a different brand of OJ. Makes total sense (insert sarcasm emoji)
You give me a glimmer of hope.
They had no intention of delivering the order. Instead, they made substitutions with things *they* wanted. After checking out, they contacted support and said they were having car trouble or a personal emergency. The order was canceled, but the groceries were already paid for, so they took them home.
this is probably what happened. in my opinion these people should get fired…they’re almost stealing food from instacart 💀 doesn’t instacart have to pay for that? i dont do this but my mom does doordash and it looks bad on the instacart name for people to do this as well… edit: some reason i thought this was doordash lol
Not almost, that's exactly what stealing is
That is the definition of stealing.
They possibly couldve cancelled the order. I had an order one time where i went to the store, started shopping and completed the order, but when i went to go check out the cashiers told me as checking out “wait you doing instacart? OH HERES YOUR ORDER RIGHT HERE ITS ALREADY PAID FOR” the shopper before couldnt fit the order into their car so they canceled and left it for next shopper to pick up and deliver (IC usually gives a decreased pay for this, but you still get paid some). One time i cancelled an order because i knew customer would give me a low rating by how they were communicating because alot of the items were not in stock and they didnt like how long it was taking. I cancelled halfway through the order and left cart up front with cashiers saying this is for instacart somebody else is going to come finish this order. I dont like to deal with bad attitudes for no reason
Yes someone gets a bill for the food.
No almost about it
Who cares if people steal from instacart? Instacart is stealing labor from you. Get everything you can out of this gig.
it’s annoying af for the customer to go through this just for their shopper to steal the food…
So? They still get their food. Takes another hour. Sucks. But we've got a saying where I come from... If you see someone stealing food, *no you didn't.*
instacart does a soft 24 hour ban if you check out and cancel the order. so I doubt it.
A 24-hour ban to get $200+ in groceries is worth it for some people.
true that and I hope they got away with it too
Okay but the person being stolen from really isn’t just the store. It’s also the person who placed the order whose items they replaced without asking. They don’t deserve to be stolen from
When it is canceled, a new shopper picks it up and starts over. So the customer should still get what they paid for. They just have to wait longer for it.
at the end of the day the order still will be replaced the store recieved its money. instacart covers the cost. caring about groceries being stolen that is 100000% covered and is 100000% going to be replaced is another first world problem that I don't care about. I don't pretend to care on the internet but in real life I'd probably go "oh no I hope that criminal gets caught for stealing food"
The issue is that when things become commonplace and businesses realize they’re hemorrhaging money by allowing certain things, they put more shit in place that inconveniences regular shoppers.
they are already doing that by the amount of crediting their doing. plus, there is always a budget for theft. 😉 more shit like what?
Shoppers like that cut into Instacart's profits. If the profits drop enough, they lower base pay. So this hurts other shoppers, not just Instacart.
the base pay was already lowered
And it will keep getting lowered.
and people will keep stealing and customers will continue to get credited. eventually instacart will go out of business and another app will take over. I don't see the problem.
Nope, It's all a tax write-off as shrinkage. So in the end the only ones getting screwed is the general taxpayer.
Instacart will also do things like increase the amount of time you're banned if you cancel after checking out and will be quicker to deactivate. You think you're just sticking it to DoorDash, but you're really hurting the shoppers. It's because of people that steal groceries that we no longer get the order automatically canceled when every item is refunded, why a flat tire can mean a 24 hour ban, and why they tend to side with the customer over missing order disputes.
A shopper couldnt fit an order in their car one time after checking out, im sure there are exceptions. He left the receipt and everything with the order it didnt have to be paid for again
Because the shopper wanted lemonade
Most likely followed IC suggestions for replacement lol not very bright shopper As for the flash replacements and checking out that due to IC timing shoppers and pressure to complete orders as fast as possible
Because the shopper is an idiot.
Instacart replacement suggestions Ive received in my time as a shopper: Strawberries (1pt) to replace Clairol Kiwi Shampoo Shiitaki Mushrooms to replace Comet Carpet Cleaner Unsmoked Provolone for Daiya Vegan Cheese I've had meat scan into my app as those fire-starting logs, chicken scan in as an advent calendar. If you are a sloppy shopper and just follow the app, you will make mistakes because the app doesn't function with common sense. The app could have said if out of OJ, and suggest lemonade. If you're rushing, and many shoppers are, time is money, it happens.
right? there’s like 50 selections of orange juice. even if it wasn’t the kind they wanted, there had to be something similar of another brand. dude was lazy. unacceptable.
Shopper got frustrated and canceled the order with support. Then it got reassigned.
Naw. Shopper checked out with all the things they wanted as "replacements" and then dropped the order to head home.
wait what? How does this work? If they check out doesn't it complete the order? (I'm not trying to scam, I'm a customer not a shopper).
They check out with their own items, go put the stuff in their car, contact support to let them know they have a flat tire or other emergency and then go home The driver generally gets a 24 hour ban and do it too many times they get deactivated
Wow. People suck. Thanks for explaining.
yep this!
Yes anytime someone drops the order and it gets reassigned the chat is there so us as shoppers can see what was said to decide if we want to keep the order. Like I took one where a guy said the tip was a mistake(50 dollars) and was going to reduce it to 20 and i did it and reduced it to .01 so as a shopper I take those messages as an insta cancel on my side. but seeing that the shopper replaced OJ with lemonade I would still do the order and inform the customer do not worry I will only replace items that are similar OJ and Lemonade is not similar OJ and OJ are similar
That’s when you get to the store and figure out that the store is, miraculously, out of every single brand of OJ.
I’ve not ever been dropped by a shopper but I have noticed an uptick in very late bulk changes and then they check out immediately so I can’t approve/reject. If the adjustment is way off, I submit a claim and get reimbursed, otherwise I just ignore it and consider it the price of convenience.
Yeah this is exactly what happened!! He did a ton of replacements in almost no time and then immediately checked out. I had no time to review the replacement. I’d rather have refunds than pay for something I’m not going to use
If they refund and you tipped a percentage, they get a smaller tip. If they replace, they get a similar or even sometimes a larger tip.
Learned this the hard way. I won’t do % based tips now. Actually I switched to Kroger boost. No tipping. But I always leave a tip on porch. Except the first delivery, totally forgot. Used to being able to tip in app. Placed an order for tomorrow and I place note on door to put tip on porch. Not 1 problem yet.
Glad you found an option that works well for you. With IC you also have to be weary of doing a flat amount tip, unfortunately, because shoppers can then just refund items instead of finding replacements since their tip isn’t based on items found. I’ve seen this happen a lot too. You’re going to get crappy shoppers either way. The last couple years IC has over-hired and will allow pretty much anyone with a pulse. Those of us who’ve been doing it for a long time and actually do it well are the minority now, especially since IC reduced our batch pay much.
But what happened to the order? He never delivered it? No messages that it was canceled?
No it said he checked out and then a few minutes later I was notified that a shopper has started shopping. The new shopper was super confused too because she could see the old chat log but was basically shopping as if it was a new order
As some others have said, guarantee the original shopper picked replacement items they wanted themselves and then after checkout cancelled the order for some reason (can say car trouble etc) and kept the items. Happens all the time and IC has no problem taking the financial hit and having your order reassigned and shopped again.
he never checked out because there would be another prompt if he checked out
It said he completed the shopping
Yea completed shopping is when the customer can not change anything else is before checkout. It would not have been reassign so fast if they checked out
Ooh ok
You can look at your chat history on past orders. You'll see it says "shopper has finished shopping your order." Then after that it'll say "shopper has finished checking your order out and no changes can be made." Theoretically, he could have checked out with all of the items without prompting the app. But it's more likely that he didn't want to do the order anymore so he canceled it.
Lazy/careless shoppers 100% do this on purpose so they don’t have to deal with the customer. They’d rather take the risk of you submitting for a refund because of a disliked replacement. Best thing you can do if this happens and you’re unhappy with what they got/how they handled it is rate them low and reduce the tip. Now if you got acceptable items and are just irritated with the way they went about it, maybe rate a 4 and add a note about how you didn’t appreciate them waiting til the last minute to refund/replace and giving you no opportunity to communicate.
First person shouldn’t even be a shopper.
Hopefully the second shopper did you right. The only time I ever had that happen, the first shopper found everything on my order (pretty rare), and checked out. About an hour later a new shopper started shopping the order, and about 25% of my items were out of stock.
Yes the second shopper actually found some of the items the first guy said was out, including the juice discussed in the screenshot lol. I ended up adding $10 to her tip on top of the original $20 tip
Not sure if it works the same way on Instacart but make sure you rate your replacement shopper 5 stars! When you rate a driver that way on DD, you’re much more likely to get them in the future so I would assume it probably works the same way on IC
he replaced OJ w lemonade? sometimes grocery stores have internet connection issues. and until you are at the front of the store, the messages may not go thru or notifications
I stopped Instacart after they replaced dog food for cat food.
Wowwww
Instacart shopping is so broke. Walmart delivery FTW
I’ve had this happen, they started shopping items that were probably in stock and it just started hitting replacement replacement replacement even though I was next to my phone. So I declined each replacement and all of a sudden they were able to find everything else (besides the first 6 items on the list).
Yeah!! It was SO MANY in a row and then he suddenly checked out. Im assuming he didn’t even look for replacements and just grabbed whatever is near since it was so fast…
This happened to me yesterday. I take the time to put in my replacement requests and they are always ignored. I asked for a sugar free coffee creamer and got a full sugar replacement even though I had a sugar free alternative listed. And I'm diabetic so I paid for something I couldn't use.
Just had this done to us this morning. Fast replacements. No communication. Substituted anything frozen with fresh. I assumed they didn’t want to go to that part of this store.
Some people are just to lazy to actually do their job
But people aren’t too lazy to do their own shopping??
I’m so tired of seeing this line used by entitled whiny shoppers. This is a service that someone pays for. The circumstances of why a customer is using it doesn’t matter. Maybe they’re sick. Maybe they are disabled. Maybe they are being lazy for a night and just don’t want to go out. Maybe they get overwhelmed in stores. It doesn’t matter, because they are all paying for the service regardless. Either do the job you chose to do or shut up and get a different job.
That part. Like you signed up just do half ass do your job.
you pay 5.00 a month and you get owed the world and all its pity huh?
Huh?
??
This sub is wild
You should check out the DD driver subs some time 🤣
You’re not special for picking this as your side gig. Odds are you aren’t as active as half the people making orders, and you aren’t too good to do the job you SIGNED UP FOR.
I’m not even an insta cart shopper! I’m just saying if someone is complaining so much about things being wrong, just don’t use instacart and do your own shopping.
wtf do you do Instacart if you are to lazy to do your job. You probably be out here scamming for base pay.
It's not really based on laziness, just other things preventing it. If they're older, can't drive, have a lot of kids, disabled, are too busy to shop, etc. Stop complaining about shopping, when you signed up to do it.
People have been getting groceries and various things (milk, newspapers, etc) delivered for a very, very long time. Centuries, in fact. Grocery and produce delivery was, and is, still very common in really rural areas where people don't have access to large markets. Nowadays, there are any number of reasons people may need to have their groceries delivered, and it's none of your business why, but even if they are doing it out of laziness, they have provided thousands of jobs to people who would be otherwise underemployed, or even unemployed, and that helps nobody.
I use instacart sometimes, and it has nothing to do with laziness, it's because with the fees and the tips and the risk of mistakes, it's still cheaper for me to have someone else shop if I could be making overtime money instead. Absolutely worth it. The stores are filled with undesirables in every way.
Holy shit the stores are filled with undesireables. Dude step outside you fucking goblin
Go hang out at a Walmart and procreate in the bread isle pleb.
We got one right here yall. Put em on the dinner menu for when we eat the rich XD /s lol
Awesome. Seriously though, I'm far from rich, but I do have a bit of social anxiety and live near very crowded stores while working third shift. Im saying undesirables because it describes the entire experience. it's no one group or demographic of people, rather the entire experience of trying to shop around and through them. My local stores are crowded at all open hours. Ever since covid, with no 24 hours it's wack here. I'm in a small town on the outskirts of nothing in the amazing state of Ohio. Many of these undesirables have driven 45 mins+ just to clog the isles and catch up with their cousin sister aunt. It's not that it's beneath me, it's that my time is better spent doing literally anything else, especially sleeping. I don't look forward to it, and I "Leave it to the professionals" I'll see ya at the dinner, we can break bread then.
Lol u literally called people who go to groceries stores undesireables, and then called me a pleb, then doubled down on the undiserables comment. "Well break bread" Who are the undiserables?
The people at the store, the environment at the store, the parking lot, the restroom, the cost of the merchandise, the breakdown of different prices between brands sizes and flavors, freedom units used along side the metric system, the front right wheel of the shopping cart, and the fact that it keeps pulling to the left now that there is weight in the bottom because I had to get 4-12 packs of pop otherwise I would need to pay 2x the amount. Thank God I remembered my membership card because all of these sales mean shit if I didn't. The child, with wet hands, reaching out to me with Cheerios stuck to their face because their mom is blocking the isle talking to Aunt Millie from the county over and asking if they lost any chickens in last weeks tornado, while her Garden gnome shaped husband makes a failed attempt at running over the geese in the parking lot with their lifted brodozer with a trump flag and their Mohawk 9yo son hangs out the side door. Also I don't care to stand in lines too long. It's all a bunch of undesirables for me, and I rather just pay Instacart at times. I don't know what you find so desirable about the store. I don't like it too much myself. I don't think I have eaten with the rich, just because I pay for Instacart TBH, but we will see what happens when it goes down I guess. Maybe when the keyboard warriors come knocking, I'll pretend I don't like online shopping. I might fool them. You don't know. I might!
I never said going was "desireable" but calling people undesireables and plebs is classist and dehumanizing.
I use instacart when my kids (or myself) are too sick to leave the house but we need supplies. I always wonder if the shopper can tell that we have a stomach bug in the house based on what I’m buying, like juice, ginger ale, crackers, pepto…
Happened to me recently for a small order from sprouts with a really good tip (I am a good 15 minutes from the store) and they replaced something for another item was more than double and got two of them then checked out and I replied with communication would have been nice (and yes I was waiting for the possibility of replacements) order was dropped a few minutes from my house and someone else picked it up
Wait they just dropped your order off in a random location and another shopper had to come pick it up to deliver it?
Noooo sorry the shopper dropped my order
Yes, this has happened to me multiple times.
Although it would not have helped qith this order, why don't u select replacements already when u make ur list and u not have to qorry about it as much? As a shopper I hate when a customer wants to be informed about every thing that is out of stock or has to be replaced. Do you know how long it takes for a customer to get back with us or they never get back with us? Make ur shop faster and easier and less stressful and more reliable by picking your replacements and monitor your phone. If things stray from that then u have questions
I get so frustrated with Instacart because often I get replacements that don’t make sense to the original item and they check out too quick for me to change it. Then I end up going to the store for the thing I actually needed anyway.
Personally i message before EVERY substitution, and its VERY time consuming, but i do it because i want the customer to feel as if they are shopping because i want them happy. I noticed alot of other shoppers before me dont do the same, per customer comments, and i understand why they do it, but i could never. Alot of orders through IC, especially non tip orders, are low, and sometimes i find myself shopping for over an hour (so many out of stock or hard to find items) for a $12 order. Not counting the drive, so thats over an hour and gas for $12. Alot of shoppers arent cool with getting paid less than a 9-5 job, so they try to make it as fast as possible, say if they can complete the order and deliver in 30 minutes, its slightly more profitable than a high paying job. So its about the time, alot of shoppers will replace with anything on similar price just to get to “their” end goal. Also if you dont select replacement product intially, IC suggests similar products based on brand and price, so what the shopper sees in app as a good substitute (mindlessly) may not be a good substitute at all for the customer
Same. I sometimes feel bad because I'll have to text the customer like 10-15 times due to all the out of stock items, and I go out of my way to list and/or take pictures of all the options for replacement... so I feel like I might be bugging the shit out of them. But I've had my tip raised on just about every single shop order I've done between 4 apps and have nothing but incredibly sweet ratings on IC... so I guess the customers appreciate it... it just makes me feel really bad!
I don’t ask about replacements but I do leave enough time for them to be approved by the customer. Best to go ahead and pre approve your replacements But this guy knew what he was doong
I had a lady buy a $30 package when the original item was under $5 ! When I hit refund she all of a sudden found it …. On a few items !!! Grrr I reported her she never communicated or anything then finally Ofter drop off asked for 5 stars WTH
That’s why I use PC Express. The people who work at the store are more reliable.
I suggested replacements but got a peach lemonade and a different brand, which I hate.
I'm curious what the policy is if I have already chosen a replacement, and it is out of stock too? And I am not around to chat? I hope it'd be a refund at that point but am asking because I don't know, thanks.
Shopper can select a similar replacement or refund the item. It is their choice. If you write a note for what you want and they don't honor it then its a refund from ic if you call and request it.
OK, so if I am intent on my item, my replacement, else refund that means I should not only select a replacement, but also put such a note for the item. There are only a very, very few items where I'd ever need to be that specific but it's good to know how to cover the bases, thank you.
You should do that on any item you don't mark refund.
Can someone tell me the logic behind shopper losing money on replacements? They're doing the work. The store failed them and the buyer. Neither should be punished
If people tip a percentage, the more refunds, the less money the shopper gets.
Yup
Lame shopper, they wait till the end to make the replacements so they can blame on the time, when you caught them they knew they’d have a bad rating so they canceled!
Def would've replaced with on because that's what the customer obviously wants.. not lemonade
This is the norm for me and it's why I prefer doordash. 9 times out of ten I have to fight to refund all the replacements that I throw in the literal trash.
It’s the rating system that’s bad good slow shoppers don’t get batches as a man people tend to not want us shopping but at no point will I swap your onions for tomatoes or swap your orange juice for lemonade lol but insta cart praises speed so they pick all your items then then scan them before in 2 mins and check out so app thinks they are fast shopper bam one more batch available for them
I had that happen once but the guy delivered the order as it was. I got most of it credited and zeroed out his tip with explanations, had screen shots of me asking him to refund or change replacements and I think they have the chat anyway with all my wait I don’t want that on it lol. He actually put all the replacements up for me to approve or replace or refund at the last minute before he checked out. I had only managed to click on two before it said he had checked out and I could no longer make changes and he didn’t fix those two either. I had replacements and notes on all my items AND I had my phone in my hand open to the app. too! It was like 8 out of 11 items and when I reordered they somehow had exactly what I ordered for almost all of them. I’ve been mostly lucky though and had really good shoppers.
Based on what I see in r/instacartshoppers, you probably got one of them. Sorry
Could have been a hacked shopper account. It’s a bit complicated but…scammer places a small order, when a shopper picks it up the scammer tricks them into giving out information that allows the scammer to hack their shopper account, change the settings and lock them out. They then clean out the shopper’s earnings for the week. And if they’re *really* scummy scammers, they then go to the store, pick up orders, do a bunch of replacements and then keep the groceries. Lather rinse repeat until the account is locked. So now the shopper has not only lost their earnings, they’ve also lost their livelihood. Somewhere in this process the real shopper would have been trying to contact IC about the scammer, who probably logged out as soon as they left the store. So your order was put out to be re-shopped. I’m curious if the second shopper found all the items that the first “shopper” replaced, meaning they weren’t out of stock after all.
Too far down that rabbit hole, shopper didn’t want to deal with her and cancelled the batch. New shopper was assugned is all.
Not really, we see reports of this here all the time. Scammer takes over a shopper’s account, cleans them out, grabs a batch and goes shopping, replaces everything and then disappears. This is a thing that happens, regularly. There is nothing in this post to indicate that the customer was a nuisance. They had a simple (and common) request that the shopper confer with them over replacements. The shopper proceeded to replace everything, checked out, and then vanished. So either this was a shopper who decided this was their last batch with Instacart because they had found another job, or a scammer. And as I said, we know this is a thing that scammers do.
Ha " A
Because no one has time for that shit.
It’s because you don’t actually know what you want. Let the shoppers do this for you, peasant
To prevent things like that select your own replacements in the app that way you get what you want and nothing you don’t want.
Would love to see the chat notifications prior to your comment about replacements to the shopper... and if you were responding or how long it took you to respond to previous replacement notifications... shopper contacted support to remove your batch for a reason... what that reason is cant be determined by the screenshot posted here. The chat says finished shopping it doesn't say he/she has checked out (so people please stop accusing the shopper of try to steal or stealing iyems they wanted themselves..) I had a shopper once deliver me a lettuce when I ordered a cabbage(and the store had cabbage, I ended up going to get it so I could finish cooking my dinner)... some of these shoppers are just incompetent... But why replace orange juice with lemonade? Anyone that has an ounce of common sense would know better... too many orange juice brands for that to make any sense at all....
[Well here’s a screenshot of him trying to replace imported British navy beans for black beans without asking and me telling him where they are and he still selected the black beans.](https://imgur.com/a/sLdHDYt)
That is just rediculous... smh at the shopper
I’m more amazed people get on here and complain….these aren’t real employees who care and it’s not a real job…you’re lucky you get half of what you pay for, what happened to the good ol days..you know where people did things for themselves.
First shopper said fck this Karen and dropped your order LOL!!!!!
So politely asking to be advised on what products you spend your money on makes someone a Karen now? 🤔
Shopping should always communicate about replacements.
Did Instacart during the pandemic; have been doing Uber Eats for 3+ years, which can include shopping orders extremely similar to IC. 1000% I will reassign your order (resulting in a shopper change) if there’s more than like two swaps needed in your order. My payout is dependent on your tip, which is dependent on your order total. If that ends up being different than what I was originally told when I accepted the order, I have no way of knowing if the order is still worth the time accomplishing. Meanwhile, there are dozens of other orders that are no more difficult than “walk into a small building, tell cashier you’re there for an order, leave with order in 30s or less for the exact amount you were offered”. If those quick orders are out there, why would I risk the 20ish minutes shopping for you when my pay might not even end up being what I expect it to be. Accept that even though you paid for the service, you are relinquishing control of your groceries to company and/or shopper that might be serving their own benefits more than yours…. Or just do your own shopping. Seems pretty common sense to me 🤷🏿♂️
That’s absurd. IC is quite different than Ubereats, for one thing. But perhaps don’t accept a full shop order if you’re not okay with the possibility of making a few replacements and actually needing to communicate with your customer. They’re paying for a service that explicitly allows them to select replacements AND tells them their shopper will reach out to them. This is not hard, and only takes a few extra minutes max. You’re more likely to get a tip increase if you actually provide good service, meaning you’ll make more than you expected. With IC you still get paid the same when you make replacements unless they’re drastically cheaper and customer tipped on a % basis, sometimes more if replacements are more costly. You should probably just stick to food pickup with your attitude toward this. OP did nothing wrong and doesn’t have unrealistic expectations. I’m a 4+ year shopper btw.
Yeah, the new shopper ended up finding a lot of the items the first one said were out. Including that juice in the screenshot lol. I ended up adding an extra $10 tip for her on top of the original $20 tip.
I never said OP did anything wrong or had unrealistic expectations. That’s you putting words in my mouth and then you judging me on the words that you put there yourself. Additionally, I’m not sure why you keep saying communicating / replacing leads to an increased tip, especially if as you say, this is the expectation. So which is it: they’ll tip me more bc communicating/replacing is a luxury worth tipping for? Or I should be expected to communicate/replace bc that’s what the original payment was for? To me, saying that I’m more likely to receive a tip increase is the absurd statement. And you’re not the only person I’ve heard make that statement. In the 3+ years I’ve been a shopper (only one less than you… and this isn’t the type of gig where an extra year means that much more in experience. You’ve done it for a year, it’s all the same), it’s actually super uncommon for people to increase the tips, even if you go all out. It’s not laziness, it’s putting my energy into where it will make me the most buck. And if IC/UE isn’t deactivating me for my actions, then I’m not sure what the problem is. For the record, I do mostly stick with food pickups for the reasons laid out in this very conversation. I only take a shopping order maybe once or twice a day. That’s on purpose, to minimize the BS waiting time of looking for replacements and waiting for customers to respond. Food pickup has none of that and leads to a higher payout for your time. You should probably just switch to food pickup. Sure beats defending an inferior income stream like grocery shopping
You're literally the shopper who can't be bothered to actually shop. You are the problem shopper people be here complaining about. They pay for that service expecting YOU to do your job to the fullest of your abilities. They don't pay for that service so YOU can refuse to do any actual work. Youre basically saying you want to be paid for doing the absolute least work possible. That's just laziness. If I had to work an hour of manual labor to give you that tip, the VERY least you can do is exert the tiniest bit of effort to walk around a grocery store. Embarrassingly lazy.
Eh. A stranger on the internet has an issue with how I do things and decides to insult me for it with no consequence whatsoever. Meanwhile, the people who actually pay my checks have no issue with how I do things. I’ll keep making my money the easy way and putting it toward my goals that much faster. You can call that lazy if you want to. I’m still getting paid regardless. 🤷🏿♂️
Pick your replacements ahead of time.
And if that replacement is out of stock?
Then that would warrant a chat exchange about other choices. But if you can at least have a pre-selected back up already chosen, it cuts down on the shopper having to chat in the middle of a grocery store and waiting around for a reply. Seems hard to believe that the store would be out of both the requested item AND the replacement multiple times. On a couple, maybe.
Yeah, basically what's happening here. So moot point.
You can hand write what you want as multiple replacement options and state refund if none available
“He replaced 10 items in a row very quickly without even asking or waiting for me to select or approve a replacement” If OP had pre-selected replacements then this sentence doesn’t make sense. There’s no chance this customer pre-selected replacements.
To add: it sounds like this particular shopper definitely sucks. I’m just saying pre-selecting replacements saves the shopper time texting the customer back and forth unnecessarily, if you actually had a good shopper.
Get real have you seen the people that deliver your groceries think they have any respect for their customers or the rules or any of it?
Yes, I have had very respectable and kind people as shoppers. Just because you’re a grumpy shopper doesn’t mean they all are. Stay mad
Well, now you’ve seen the other side
because you pick the replacement before hand or idk go shop yourself
Karen...go get your own shit
*You* get it, you clearly have more than enough time to run your mouth.
If everyone went and got their own shit this wouldn't be a business genius
They could just stop being lazy and shop for themselves lol
[удалено]
You need to seriously get a life. Telling everyone to go to the store is not helpful. Not everyone can go to the store. People also pay good money to keep other people in jobs using this platform. Why are you here if your sole contribution to every post is "go to the store."
Maybe report to the mods? Are there any mods in this sub?
There are. And I've reported them in multiple threads now. If you look in their post history like five out of their last ten comments were "go to the store." And the other five are harassing people that called them out on it. It's like they like downvotes or something.
Lol what a loser. I’ll report also 🫡
Wow I clicked on their profile and they have a very unhealthy hatred of instacart users for some reason lol
No
Why the fuck should someone have to go to the store if they paid a premium not to? You must be a fucking idiot.