I have been with instacart nearly 2 years and I am a 5 star shopper. The past few months there has been a steady decrease in batches and an increase in updates. With every update there are additional issues. I am currently not able to see batches for hours at a time. I thought it was my phone so I went and purchased a new phone with its own telephone number that I use solely for instacart. The first few days were great then bam no batches again. I have spent countless hours with support to no avail. When I see batches I see those under $13 and loads of mileage. I have never had any issues with distance as long as the pay was worth the drive. I see batches for 50 to 70 items paying less than $10 for an in store batch. This is well below the surrounding areas as I shop there as well. I drove Monday to a neighboring city which is busier by far than where I Am at just to find the app telling me to go back to where I drove from. I sat in front of a store yesterday while that app continues to tell me to go there and still nothing comes up. I make $150 or more a day and now I am lucky to make $60. I see loads of shoppers shopping when I am sitting there as I know most that shop this area. As shoppers we all talk to each other. There is no reason why I don’t see batches before others like I use to a few months ago. So please for all that is good fix these issues. This is sad, discouraging and poorly dealt with.

So every morning when I wake up I check instacart, but as of recently whenever I check the app there is something new updated & it’s honestly just making life harder. The most recent being I can’t see how many shops are available until I “go online” which is so stupid. Then if I don’t want to see anymore I’d slide the “go offline”. I think they’re trying to make it like door dash but it’s just pointless. If I wanted to see orders obviously I’d click the app, & if I didn’t want to see anymore... I’d obviously leave the app. Why make these stupid buttons. They also changed where the location of the towns are to above the address instead of after the street name like a normal address. Also unnecessary & annoying. There were plenty more, but besides these stupid updates I LOVE this app. It’s super easy to navigate (unlock door dash) & really fun & the people who place the orders are always really nice. I also wish there was an option to set my location because recently I’ve been seeing several towns I’ve never even heard of. Which makes me think they’re 30+ miles away (who the heck is going to drive that far for one order). I just want to see the ones in my general area. Again though, the most frustrating thing for me as been these stupid little changes. It’s so unnecessary & really just making it more annoying to use the app.

This is such a fun job. I didn’t think I’d like it but wow was I wrong. It’s been great to give back and do shopping for people that cannot or just the everyday busy single or busy parent. And also all the pet mammas and daddies. So blessed to have a friend tell me about this. And it’s a great job for a retired shopaholic but avid foodie lol. App is pretty easy to use! More training would be nice, but not necessary. Great training video for the alcohol delivery! over all I understand it and appreciate cares help today with a cancel order. Also aisle numbers for Hyvee needs to be added. I loved at Lunds it told me exactly what isles. The app makes this a great new career for anyone tech savvy or knows how to use instacart as a consumer. Would love to grow with instacart and find out more development or customer care personal positions!! :) I have 5 years in hospitality management and this new developing industry I love! thank you so much this really help me get out of a toxic abusive controlling relationship and become as Kelly clarkson would say MISS INDEPENDENT ! Love having safe access to all my earnings. blessing and everyone stay safe and continue this amazing career that’s more than a delivery. It’s an experience blessing and convince for all involved.

I Absolutely love the switch to On-Demand Sunday’s I have church and family time and we go to church at 8:00am and church is an hour long so if i wanted to have a slight chance of getting hours I would have to leave church 10 min early and go outside and some how I would still end up on a waiting list so not to mention how embarrassing it was walking out early because I don’t bring my phone in with me. So I personally love the change to on demand wake up get ready open the app and immediately head to work and than when I’m done, I’m done no consequences I just go home. So thank you Instacart I fully support your decision and if anyone wants to throw a fit it’s very obvious that they can thank all the inconsistent people signing up for hours and than either bailing an hour or 2 befor there shift or bailing and not even saying anything. That may not be a big deal to anyone else but that’s money Instacart is loosing because I guarantee it’s a minimum of a half an hour by the time someone accepts the hours and gets out the door and in a position to accept an order and that’s 30 minutes of unsatisfied customers trying to make an order or what should have been delivered at 4:30 to make dinner at 5:00 is now not showing up u til 5:00 messing up there schedule possibly convincing them that they shouldn’t use Instacart. But anyways.. Good job Team Instacart is all I have to say I really like what you all have done!

You’ve hired too many shoppers and those who have been shopping 2+ years are struggling. Maybe dish out orders differently instead of giving the new shoppers all of the orders or bundling them into groups of 2 or 3. Sometimes the delivery isn’t even near each other. (An easy way for you guys not to pay us the whopping $7). You allow the customers to abuse the app and our services. I’ve had multiple people claim they never got items when I clearly sent a photo with everything. You side with the customer and let the rating effect us. I’ve been online all week for 12 hours a day and I’ve ran 8 orders. I used to do 8 a day. Don’t worry, I see plenty of new shoppers getting plenty of orders though. Way to ruin it for the shoppers who make this happen longer than those who are here for a side gig. I suggest listening to your hard workers and changing things instead of hiring more to weed out the others. It’s a low blow especially when we pay YOUR bills and fill your belly’s. I work 40+ hours a week and can’t even buy groceries let alone gas daily with a pay out of $7. Don’t forget that cute $0.40 gas bonus that you’ll be stopping at the end of next month. If you’d like to discuss more or even how you take our tips, feel free to reach out. I’ve worked for this company for 3 years and it’s going down hill. I’ve joined a group of shoppers and thankfully I’m not alone in this but it’s really sad how you don’t value us. Ps, the customer is NOT always right.

I recently moved to another state and was very heartbreaking it was taking me a while to get back into law enforcement! I was really down and I tried doing Uber and Grubhub; to help with contributing financially to help my husband and provide for three children. During this pandemic, I wasn’t making anything at all to help at home except to provide gas. I had to sign up for blocks and with children there was no telling when I could work! I would just put I was available And was lucky if they sent me any orders over a 3 hour period of sitting around! It sucked. I signed up for instacart, hoping things would pick up. I was approved so quickly and within days I was able to head out and work. After I finished an order there were so many more waiting and when I say I am so happy with what you guys are providing for people in need, on both ends, its unbelievable! I make enough to supplement my husbands income, pay bills and even help my family with what Corona is doing in our nation! I wasn’t paid to leave this review, I just really wanted to thank instacart for what you have provided that allows me to help my family! I can work when I want, can log off when I don’t and don’t have to worry about consequences! With my babies out of school and daycares closed, I control my own schedule and don’t have to fret about needing baby sitters!!!! I love it!

I have been a full service shopper since May of 2020 and have completed well over 200 batches. For my “Thank you bonus” I was given the base payment of $50 for all my hard work when the company said the bonus is based on the number of batches that have been completed. 200 being the highest amount of batches completed and the minimum amount needed for the maximum bonus amount one can get and 10 batches completed by December 9th for the minimum bonus amount of $50. Customer support is useless for this issue I was told that they can’t help me because they don’t have any information on how the bonuses are given out and that they couldn’t help me. Also when going shopping in stores the other people shopping are just so rude and it’s just so stressful to get through the day but I do my job to help out others during these unpredictable times. Sometimes the customers will lie and say that they haven’t received their items when they have and it ends up bringing down your rating so I have had to start taking pictures of each bag with the items in it to insure that everything is accounted for. And if your rating drops to far it affects you from accessing certain batches which is wrong when the customers are lying but of course the company will believe the customer before you hence the reason I take the pictures.

The new updates are so frustrating! Not only are there even more bugs than there were before which is so frustrating when I’m on a time constraint while shopping. But the update requiring I message the customer whenever I swap an item is so annoying because I always talk with the customer first anyway so now it’s just embarrassing and makes me and instacart look dumb because I have to send the message twice for them to approve the swap even though they already approved it. Then I just have to apologize saying that instacart makes me message them again, which waists the customers time and my time while I’m trying to quickly shop and get everything right. Also if there’s any way they could make this app not take all my phone battery life?! I will go in to a store with 100% battery and by the end of the order my phone will be below 20%. So many times I’ve had to stop in the middle of my order to go charge my phone because it completely died. And don’t even get me started on instacart never paying me for my friend referral bonus. Now that it’s been more than three months… In summary, doing the shopping is fine but the app has so many bugs and stupid requirements that any good shopper should have already done, it gets really frustrating when I’ve been in a busy grocery store for an hour and have to apologize to the customer and wait around for the app to work so I can complete the order.

I have been an instacart shopper for several months and I loved it! It was easy for me to shop and navigate the app. Yes, there are issues with bots and seeing bigger batches pop up and disappear right away, but I was still able to get several big batches on my own if I drove to different areas. My customers were always very appreciative of the fact that they can add items they may have forgot to order which is a PLUS!!I would have given 5 stars but I was deactivated on May 21 because my 12 year old God daughter took a picture of herself when I was taking her to grab lunch between batches. Which in Instacart defense, was the correct thing to do. HOWEVER, after explaining what happened and even taking a picture of her with her food I have yet to here back from Trust & Security. I have been getting the run around from everyone. The email they sent notifying me of the deactivation does not accept replies. The [email protected] email is no longer valid and directs me to contact support via the app, the app directs me to reply to the email or call, when I call the number is invalid!! It’s absolutely ridiculous!! I was a 5 star shopper!! And to be treated like I no longer matter because they have more shopper is unfair. Hopefully I can get this resolved soon! Whatever you do! Don’t let a kid play with your phone if you’re working forInstacart. 😔

I’ve been shopping for a month now and have done about 25 batches, a lot of doubles in there- and I am pleased with the process! Thank you for providing jobs! The guaranteed pay and gas coverage is something to really be appreciated, and makes a huge difference in my opinion. It gives shoppers some peace of mind in knowing they won’t be under-compensated when it comes to a large batch with a lot of replacements, extra time, and/or a far off delivery. I’m willing to take that extra time & care to satisfy a customer’s order knowing that the company takes all of this into account.My only suggestion is to keep improving the app! It is tiresome to have to go through several pages of ‘suggested replacements’ etc when you have already spoken with the customer and they want a refund for an item. I understand not wanting to incentivize shoppers to just refund everything- but an experienced shopper wants the option to either manually select a replacement item or refund the item on the FIRT PAGE. The several pages of suggestions take an unnecessarily long time to click through especially for people with a low phone battery or with an older phone with slightly longer load times. Overall I’m very satisfied with the user experience, and will continue to use the app myself and recommend it to others. Thank you. :)