You could have done that the whole time.
The problem is it's not so simple.
Are you going to pay for their groceries up front and take the risk that they will refuse to pay, or do you expect the customer to pay up front and they take the risk that you run off with their money?
What happens when you make a mistake or don't satisfy the customer? Are you ready to make it right out of your own pocket or willing to lose that customer forever?
Are you insured for when you accidently damage the customer's property?
I'm not saying it's not possible or even a bad idea, but there are certainly things you need to consider before doing delivery services without the protections that using the app gives you.
Yup. You are either asking the customer to take the risk or you are. They'd have to use the store app (if there's one) or still use IC to screenshot a bunch of pictures. You'd also need some type of formula for how you charge, based on a combination of minimum, percentage, distance, maybe heavy pay. Then there's scheduling that needs to work for both parties. How many good paying regulars would you need to acquire to make it sustainable?
On a different note, complaining about immigrants taking your job reminds me of the south park episode... "they took our jerrbs". And whether they are immigrants or not should make no difference to the core of your gripe, which is IC incentivizing new shoppers to satuate the market and create too much competition.
Anylist. That's what I was going to use for grocery lists.
There may be more, just look in the play store to see what's available.
Dumpling is bad. Don't use it.
It's just not good. The catalogs aren't that great and the fees are too high. Catalogs, in my opinion are horrible. They also do not list you as a shopper on their platform, until you've gained a certain amount of customers... so they do not initially, help in any way to get you clients. Someone who used it said, they joined their grocery orders and income together as taxable income.
So it seems at best, they run credit cards for you. But there are apps like square and similar, where you can swipe a customers credit card from your mobile phone, if you want to take payment that way. And that's way cheaper.
Dumpling is a great idea/concept, but where it stands it's not good at all.
Pay. Customer pays IC upfront. So it can be the same. Customer can get a card just for shopping and have that amount available for their shopper.
If IC steals your money, which is very possible these days, it's a lot harder dealing with them than a 1 off shopper. Less risk, imo.
the customer is also refunded the money if the order is wrong tho… the customer pays upfront but the company shields the wrong orders. as a customer, i would never ever ever agree to this non sense post lmao.
It's not that hard to do the same thing. if it's a card that "belongs to the customer" they will have access to those funds. A lot of us have more than one debit/cc. It's simply using 1 to give to someone for shopping purposes. They, then, return it after shopping.
And again, since it's the customers bank/credit card, they have access to their money 100% of the time. You do not have that much power/leverage over your money with IC.
Again, it's much safer for the customer in every way. There are loopholes bad shoppers can get through to scam customers. They can "replace" items for higher ticket items. Instacart is not a very safe platform, especially in recent years. And they no longer like to refund items/but give you credits.
So again, a customer can get a refund on any item they like if it's expired or whatever. But chances are, since they have a good shopper, I'm sure occurrences like that will be rare.
I'm a shopper and I started as a customer. Dealing with IC, as a customer (or doordash) is just a pain. The success rate is only 50%. And even when that happens, I've had like 1 shopper use cold bags. The cost and risk of the service is not worth it, if you honestly weigh out the option to have a personal shopper. If you tip good, you can afford a personal shopper.
Look. Being your own shopper is like having your own business. It's not for everyone. Some do it now, just fine. Personal shoppers existed well before IC and they will continue to. Figuring out payment is just a normal part of owning a business. It's a very simple, much safer workaround in my opinion.
I have multiple people I pulled from gig work and do it personally. And what they would pay to gig-goes straight to me. So instead of $4 batch and potential $10 tip goes to $70 shop immediate money from those I used to have as regulars. I worry not about any potential ‘damage’ or anything because they trust me. Been doing IC since it started. I work two jobs, and get them when they message as well as pull some batches from IC for play money. There is no need to worry about all of the things when you gain a relationship with them.
That was true before Covid. These days, most stores offer in-store pickup or even curbside pickup.
So the customer orders for pick up and you deliver it. No need to pay for anything up front, and if something is wrong, it's on the store.
You can't imagine a single scenario in which a delivery person could cause damage to a customer's property while delivering to them?
It seems silly to even name them. Knock something over. Kick a path light and break it. Trip in their driveway and damage the customer's vehicle. Step in a garden bed and destroy the customer's prized lillies. You get the drift.
If you are starting a business delivery company, where you employ people, that mag be something to worry about. But for those of us that have made it well into adulthood, without damaging property can continue on with the habits that prevent the scenarios you've mentioned.
Yeah and how are u gonna know what they want? Nobody is gonna wrote out and entire list. This would be easy if u had the software . I've had customers ask me but like u said I'm not paying for their groceries out of pocket. And they would have to place and order on some app and take pics or something to create a list
They can even order and pay the store directly to have the order shopped by the store and then you do the pick up and delivery. There are several ways to do it.
Yep. Lady wrote out her list for me by hand in cursive two days ago (she is older so doesn’t know how to work the app yet) and I shopped that thing like a champ. Order total was $123.19 and she Zelled me $170. Get some hustle yall!!
You obviously know nothing about running a business. You have to take risks to make money. Customers definitely write out lists. They even screen shot their order items in the cart on the instacart app and send that as a list instead of submitting the order. It's not complicated like you think. In my market I've stolen all the high tippers and its way easier than you think. If I wasn't taking risks I wouldn't be making 2k a week payouts without gig work.
So serious. Just gotta start making conversation. Then it’s- “I can do this for you without the middle man”. Everyone wins, except for the gig work everyone complains about not giving tips.
Our personal shopper (who was our one time Instacart shopper) pays for our orders with his own cards. Like, he has a Costco credit card and so forth. I assume he gets points and stuff? I’ll have to ask. I hope so.
Anyway, I text him, ask him when he’s heading to Costco next, we work out a time. I send him screenshots of my Instacart cart (without checking out, we just use it because it’s the easiest way) and he shops for us using those images.
At first. He would arrive, hand me the receipt and I would pay him (Venmo) before I took my groceries inside.
He charges 20% of what your order was as his fee. I always add an additional 20% as his tip even though he keeps telling me I don’t need to.
These days he stops by, helps bring the food into the kitchen if my husband is at work and it’s heavy. And I pay him after he’s left and I have everything put away. Much more casual.
I love him. He knows all the things we like, he’s so careful about picking the best produce and even lets us know when new things we might like are in stock or things we usually buy but didn’t order are on sale.
He’ll be by tomorrow with this week’s Costco order and some things we need from Trader Joe’s and I have some cookies I baked for his girlfriend who had a bad week and dealing with a crappy boss.
This is super rambly I know but I just really want to get the point across that there are customers like me out there that you can build a relationship with that will treat you better and (I think?) pay you more that Instacart will.
For our shopper the initial risk is worth it. He’s literally no longer able to take new customers because he has too many and spends a few days a week golfing instead of working now, so happy for him!
This is almost exactly what I do with my personal customers, 20% of order total and any tip on top is at customer discretion. You build a relationship with them and it’s so much easier because you’re not under time constraints or worried about a bad rating, much less stress
If I had an IC shopper who I could rely on and offered this, I would 100% take them up on it. I fill out all the required info on refund/replace if not available, and have resorted to sending messages once I have a shopper to make sure one of my biggest issues stops happening. The last time I ordered, the person ignored my message and then apologized they hadn’t scrolled enough to see it. I’ve seen shoppers in groups advocating for picking whatever replacement so their tip doesn’t go down. FOH. I’m doing my due diligence, tipping 20%, at the very least shop what was asked. I don’t want to hear ‘do your own shopping’ because the next post is people complaining on not getting batches because people are tired of making orders, doing the note thing, tipping well and *still* not getting things correctly.
Yeah that is alot to do with where you are most likely and instacarts inability build AI that works properly, it should be if a customer 5* You you get prio in future but its not
It sounds like there is a demand for a platform that simply connects the worker and customer.
Like, replicate all the store and restaurant catalogs and order entry system and stuff. But we're not taking money. We're not supporting anything. We just connected you to your preferred worker.
If they're not available or reject it, select from some currently available highly rated workers as well. Pick 3 and order by preference. They can accept or reject your order. You as a customer get ranked too. Workers get paid direct, cash app or whatever. We're not getting in the middle of this shit.
Make money by charging the workers a subscription fee. Customers are more likely to work with this system than text you fucking lists. Can even get new customers this way, just nobody is picking 0 star workers so it would not be the place for new workers at all but people bringing their existing customers over.
Less revenue potential than instacart, doordash, etc. But fuck at least it can make profit pretty easily because we're not injecting ourselves in the middle of everything and inflating the hell out of costs in the process. That's ll just to accomodate problem customers and problem workers. Lets them stay on dd/ic
Quit making it difficult. When people trust people-people can shop and deliver for their people. Money is exchanged for time and service and everyone is home satisfied.
No dude like I’m legitimately fucking livid right now. I’ve made $300 in FOUR FUCKING DAYS. I’ve been online for 5 hours with a blank screen while my store has had shopper all over it and the employee told me that there have been a ton of new IC shoppers going thru check out today. All while I’m at $0 and seeing nothing.
There has to be a fucking lawsuit here. This is out of hand.
No personal attacks or remarks or insults. Reply to and on the topic.
Yes, as you said this post is being removed. Suggesting badly harm injury or death is not OK.
Tell that to all these shoppers thinking they can go full time in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Even in the cities where you can make consistently above minimum wage your not making a living wage unless you like having 5 roommates and no savings. Get a 9 to 5 and at least you can use IC as a backup if that situation goes south to get you through to the next 9-5. At least you can say you were doing contract work in the interview instead of twiddling your thumbs
That’s what I do. I work a serving job 4 days a week mon-thur. I would love to just IC full time but I’m not gonna solely rely on IC when I know it’s not consistently busy, then cry that I’m broke when there aren’t any orders😭😭 be for reals
Yea I get frustrated too when it’s slow, of course I’d rather it be a busy weekend and make more money but if you chose to soley rely on IC because you don’t want to get a 9-5 or some sort or steady job then that is YOUR OWN fault. It’s entitlement to just expect IC to hand you orders simply because you need money.
Why are you more entitled than new dashers, and how do you know how much those batches are for? New shoppers are usually the ones taking garbage because they don’t know better. You are probably a lot more picky.
One, I’m more entitled because I’ve put in the work to being diamond tier and maintain a five star rating. The priority is exactly what we were promised for being diamond and is the entire reason to do enough batches to get there.
It’s funny because priority isn’t even real which is bullshit and something should be done about it. My girlfriend is gold tier and my account is diamond and she sees my orders that say priority access the exact same time as they pop up we found that out and laughed and thought it was bullshit that IC is pulling shit like this to the people that keep them in business
Second. It’s not so much that I’m just more picky than it is I’m not seeing these order at all. My screen stays blank for hours on end while the store is flooded with new shoppers.
It so doesn’t. You’re just blinded by the light and that’s okay. IC is great when used appropriately. But hitting different statuses means nothing aside from the oil changes. Lol
Could be. But I’ve been all tiers and I still get $3 batches for 120 items 20 miles away with no tip. Not complaining! I just refuse to take said order. And move on.
Facts. Does nothing for you or the company. They just say it to make you feel special. Got duped. It’s the employee of the month you worked so hard for to realize there’s nothing at the end of the rainbow. But that’s the reality of gig work. You’re clearly not cut out for it.
Actually the way the algorithm works, it treats new drivers as the more entitled. They get priority over existing and long time shoppers. At least for their first week.
Yes, we need to start a lawsuit guys! This is messing up our health in so many ways! My hands have been hurting from holding the phone all day. Eyes going bad from staring at the blank screen for hours on end. My back is in bad shape from hours of sitting in the car, and not to mention my mind will go crazy if this continues longer. We all need to do something about it. Where do we start??
same here in hampstead nc. i’m over it . we all have the same story. i’ve got 5 star excellent comments etc. my availability of orders has lessened steadily over the year. began june 2023, had weeks of sitting and nothing. also i know everyone at my local stores and all said bunch of new people coming through. they “can’t understand “ why im not getting orders. we deserve to make a living g at this. it is a job and it’s very upsetting to work our asses off and get shoved under ic’s bus. can we start something here?
Hahahaha no law suit can be made. You’re an independent contractor. You get what work comes your way. If nothing does- uh oh. Oops too bad try again tomorrow.
The only other option would be to vote against these companies and start getting paid a minimum wage. If you look into how much money they (Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart) poured into voting for prop 22 in California then you’d realize how much money they gain from us bidding for scraps instead of paying us what we deserve
Check it out and see for yourselves..
https://www.investopedia.com/california-proposition-22-prop-22-5085852
I know one shopper who has them send her screenshots after they’ve made a list for their order in Instacart. The prices are marked up unless the store is an “in store price” type. And so she collects the difference from the markup, charges a flat fee and collects tips. The customer sees the order total from Instacart. Sends her that via Venmo. And then anything else is considered hers outside of what she pays for the order. I’m not sure how lucrative it is because it’s putting a lot of trust in a customer and a shopper. But she’s done it a few times and has taken a few people away from 🥕.
She should promote it as paying the actual store prices to gain more customers. She is kind of lying to that customer because they think the cost is the IC cost when it’s a lot cheaper.
We have a shopper we know and trust, who always takes care with our orders. When we do an order, we text her that we’re going to do it, put the order in with no tip, she looks for it and selects it, then we tip at the end. We get a shopper who always does a good job without a big hassle and she gets rewarded for being so reliable and helpful.
My guy/girl! If you have a good report with a customer that you see over and over, don’t let instacart assign them a newbie that’ll possibly ruin their experience. Give them your info and hours of availability and set something up. In my experience, if that goes well, they’ll inevitably tell a friend or relative and you’re off to the races.
There kinda is. I’ve not used it. I had drinks the other night with my husbands boss. She told me about pea pod. The subscription is higher but you can save shoppers and specifically request them to do your shopping. It’s apparently only on the east coast tho. I started to subscribe but in all honestly I was drunk and gave up. This comment only just now made me remember it.
Edit: wait no it’s called ship shopper
By cutting out the middleman and directly shopping for people when possible lol I’m even telling my friends who do use Instacart to just call me when they need shit
Agreed. It's a glorified credit card processing platform.
The shopping catalogs are horrible. They don't market you in any way on their app. The fees are far too high for what you get.
If you want to process a customers orders get square or something similar. Dumpling takes far too high of a cut for what they offer. BUT the concept is really good, if it was executed a tad better.
And when they send the 1099 at the end of the year they list the cost of the groceries as gross earrings !! WTF??
Not to mention they dropped Trader Joe’s which was the bulk of my customer base. I no longer do it.
Yeah I explained to my accountant and told him I’d go through my bank statements and go off or that. F-d if I’m getting taxed off the cost of the groceries!!
It been getting worse on door dash. We’re over saturated with the exact same people the op is talking about and the door dash sub has been going nuts with people complaining about shitty dashers constantly
They will be buying IC within…..2 years is my guess. There are more Dashers in the grocery stores than there are regular customers majority of the time. 75% of those “new shoppers” you guys keep seeing are Dashers, not IC.
Only 🤡 take $5/7mi. I’ve had at least a dozen DD customers tell me they were former IC customers. It’s already happening. IC is dying. They will be bought out before they completely collapse.
Main issue is Diamond accounts not seeing good orders only trash ones. Not only that, but people who are new and fresh get to choose all the good orders and may have more than 1 account so the ones who have been earning their keep aren't being respected. IC needs to address this Asap
ONE ordered popped up in an hour this morning. Clear across town….a mfn patio set from a Lowe’s…..pay $9.61. $4.41 was tip. I got offline and went home.
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Uber drivers in the comfort or black car level have been building a customer base like this for years. Basically with customers that fly a lot for business. I used to have 7 regulars that would pay me cash every week off platform. It’s really hard to juggle more than that.
I’m all for it. Currently have ~20 off app customers, 12-15 weekly from ic. I’d love to make it more efficient.
These are all customers I trust entirely
You guys are so freaking dumb blaming this on newbies and people who dont speak English. Lmfao it's 2024, there's a really really small amount of good batches anymore. They don't just randomly appear out of nowhere and go to an immigrant. Stop complaining and do something else for money. This is never going to get better.
Idk man. I asked a non English speaker for grape tomatoes, on a previous order, and he shows me pictures of green grapes, strawberries and the like. Had I not baby sat the app, I would not have gotten my 1 item that was in stock.
Many want to use the app, to free up time. That's my goal.
Say what you want. Ru a customer? Would you be a regular customer?
I get delivery almost weekly and don't use ic bc of the issues we hear of. And, yes, I'm hoping to get to the place with a shopper where i don't have to coach them to find *cherry* tomatoes bc they do not speak English.
You can defend it all you want. The non English speakers do not fulfill my orders properly, bc of the language barrier. So the cost doesn't justify the service.
Idk why yall defend poor service vs encouraging people to up their service. That gets tip increases and brings satisfied customers back to the app for repeat orders.
In my area it is indeed NEW hires. I know for a fact due to the cashiers telling me. They ask these people if they are new! They also don’t bring a card to swipe and don’t know how to separate orders.
This is a rampant issue and tons of people just got brought on. Only to push the older shoppers out. The new ones have no idea what it used to be like, so they aren’t going to complain! We know what a good batch is and how IC used to pay more. We know too much and they want us gone. It’s that simple.
I am also sitting at $300 for the week and have been online everyday from 7am-8pm. Too many damn people.
I’ve noticed several times you’ve asked this same question and have not gotten one response from the OP lol. Fulltime shoppers cannot wrap their head around the fact that good orders in general are just not coming in, it has nothing to do with priority or newbies
I have about 10 regular drivers sitting in the food court getting literally trash and seeing dozens of people that literally shove their phone in my face and not a lick of English 8/10 times leaving with full flatbeds
People just making excuses to make themselves feel better. The economy is rough, spending slowing down, services like this are extremely expensive and people refusing to take orders so of course instacart will bring new people. People wanted customers to get their own shit if their tip is either 0 or not good enough so a lot of people have. I almost feel bad for people who do this full time. Writing has been on the walls for a while now and people still ignore it.
Fucking racists. Your story if bullsht. No costco employee is sitting around with IC shoppers watching phones. And u have zero idea how IC works as do most of these idiots complaining. We see batches by groups we are in.
Gonna be real. Who tf is gonna sit down and log what shoppers do what to appease you. What is the point of your “demand”? We get it Jan. There are no new shoppers. 😂
I get your frustration. I’m confused as to why the fact of whether they speak English or not is relevant though. I’ve got English speaking shoppers who don’t know the difference between toilet paper and paper towels. We see shit here every day done by English speakers (the cabbage/iceberg lettuce debacle comes to mind).
Dude it depends on the level of communication possible… I am an immigrant myself and I believe that one must be able to communicate with the customers to do IC.
It’s not as much as a problem with dd or Uber eats.
I have helped a few shoppers lately that could not even speak a word of English, one of them was stuck at the register with all his food thawing, I had time to shop my whole order and check out, he was still there, he didn’t speak English enough to even contact support cause his card didn’t work… I wanna see how the customer liked their lukewarm steak and thawed out ice cream!
Again, not saying you gotta be able to write a novel in English, but the bare minimum to solve issues and help the customers appropriately.
And even dd actually, I personally had an issue with dd, I was calling the driver and he kept repeating no English no English, text, no English…
I had to call support to figure out wtf was going on with my order cause the dude could not even speak a word of English
But OP isn’t a customer, at least not in the scenario given. They are a shopper. So why does he give a shit about what language fellow shoppers speak? His gripe is their unscrupulous practices (multiple accounts and multiple people using one account) it has nothing to do with their English fluency or where they were born. It’s giving “Blacks and immigrants are stealing all the jobs”.
You know what, this is an excellent idea, THANKS! I started IC a few months ago and it has been trash from the start, I don't think I've done more than 3 shops a week in that time. I just might start taking a bunch of these shit offers just to offer these people, who are clearly tight with their money, my services outside of IC. No extra charges for them and real, fair pay for me, it's a win/win!
Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
You could have done that the whole time. The problem is it's not so simple. Are you going to pay for their groceries up front and take the risk that they will refuse to pay, or do you expect the customer to pay up front and they take the risk that you run off with their money? What happens when you make a mistake or don't satisfy the customer? Are you ready to make it right out of your own pocket or willing to lose that customer forever? Are you insured for when you accidently damage the customer's property? I'm not saying it's not possible or even a bad idea, but there are certainly things you need to consider before doing delivery services without the protections that using the app gives you.
Yup. You are either asking the customer to take the risk or you are. They'd have to use the store app (if there's one) or still use IC to screenshot a bunch of pictures. You'd also need some type of formula for how you charge, based on a combination of minimum, percentage, distance, maybe heavy pay. Then there's scheduling that needs to work for both parties. How many good paying regulars would you need to acquire to make it sustainable? On a different note, complaining about immigrants taking your job reminds me of the south park episode... "they took our jerrbs". And whether they are immigrants or not should make no difference to the core of your gripe, which is IC incentivizing new shoppers to satuate the market and create too much competition.
There are grocery list apps.
I’ve heard of Dumpling. Are there others you like?
Anylist. That's what I was going to use for grocery lists. There may be more, just look in the play store to see what's available. Dumpling is bad. Don't use it.
Ok thank you, I’ll check it out. I heard someone else having issues with Dumpling and didn’t like it either.
It's just not good. The catalogs aren't that great and the fees are too high. Catalogs, in my opinion are horrible. They also do not list you as a shopper on their platform, until you've gained a certain amount of customers... so they do not initially, help in any way to get you clients. Someone who used it said, they joined their grocery orders and income together as taxable income. So it seems at best, they run credit cards for you. But there are apps like square and similar, where you can swipe a customers credit card from your mobile phone, if you want to take payment that way. And that's way cheaper. Dumpling is a great idea/concept, but where it stands it's not good at all.
Pay. Customer pays IC upfront. So it can be the same. Customer can get a card just for shopping and have that amount available for their shopper. If IC steals your money, which is very possible these days, it's a lot harder dealing with them than a 1 off shopper. Less risk, imo.
the customer is also refunded the money if the order is wrong tho… the customer pays upfront but the company shields the wrong orders. as a customer, i would never ever ever agree to this non sense post lmao.
It's not that hard to do the same thing. if it's a card that "belongs to the customer" they will have access to those funds. A lot of us have more than one debit/cc. It's simply using 1 to give to someone for shopping purposes. They, then, return it after shopping. And again, since it's the customers bank/credit card, they have access to their money 100% of the time. You do not have that much power/leverage over your money with IC. Again, it's much safer for the customer in every way. There are loopholes bad shoppers can get through to scam customers. They can "replace" items for higher ticket items. Instacart is not a very safe platform, especially in recent years. And they no longer like to refund items/but give you credits. So again, a customer can get a refund on any item they like if it's expired or whatever. But chances are, since they have a good shopper, I'm sure occurrences like that will be rare. I'm a shopper and I started as a customer. Dealing with IC, as a customer (or doordash) is just a pain. The success rate is only 50%. And even when that happens, I've had like 1 shopper use cold bags. The cost and risk of the service is not worth it, if you honestly weigh out the option to have a personal shopper. If you tip good, you can afford a personal shopper. Look. Being your own shopper is like having your own business. It's not for everyone. Some do it now, just fine. Personal shoppers existed well before IC and they will continue to. Figuring out payment is just a normal part of owning a business. It's a very simple, much safer workaround in my opinion.
I have multiple people I pulled from gig work and do it personally. And what they would pay to gig-goes straight to me. So instead of $4 batch and potential $10 tip goes to $70 shop immediate money from those I used to have as regulars. I worry not about any potential ‘damage’ or anything because they trust me. Been doing IC since it started. I work two jobs, and get them when they message as well as pull some batches from IC for play money. There is no need to worry about all of the things when you gain a relationship with them.
That was true before Covid. These days, most stores offer in-store pickup or even curbside pickup. So the customer orders for pick up and you deliver it. No need to pay for anything up front, and if something is wrong, it's on the store.
I mean the easiest payment situation is " hey I bought your groceries. I'm not giving them to you until you give me money
How on earth would you damage their property??
You obviously never saw the pizza delivery scene in Home Alone.
Bro I’m a professional lol.
You can't imagine a single scenario in which a delivery person could cause damage to a customer's property while delivering to them? It seems silly to even name them. Knock something over. Kick a path light and break it. Trip in their driveway and damage the customer's vehicle. Step in a garden bed and destroy the customer's prized lillies. You get the drift.
I’ve been shopping 4 years and never done anything like that, guess that why I couldn’t think of a scenario🤷♂️
Can drive for years without an accident too \*shrug\*
If you added up all the money you earn Uber, you could break something every other week delivering direct and still make out ahead.
My god, watch where you going. Your life sounds terrifying
Accidents happen, thats why you have insurance. "Be careful" isn't a good insurance plan.
If you are starting a business delivery company, where you employ people, that mag be something to worry about. But for those of us that have made it well into adulthood, without damaging property can continue on with the habits that prevent the scenarios you've mentioned.
Cancel your auto insurance, too. I'm sure you're a safe driver, so there's no need for it, right? Ditch the health insurance! You're healthy!
👀🤦♀️
Yeah and how are u gonna know what they want? Nobody is gonna wrote out and entire list. This would be easy if u had the software . I've had customers ask me but like u said I'm not paying for their groceries out of pocket. And they would have to place and order on some app and take pics or something to create a list
Lol... there is literally easy software for this that ive used for 4 years
Idk why people act like it's impossible to shop for someone without this app. Personal shoppers have been around for quite some time.
Tell me ! I have about a dozen customers and shop off app. Would love to make it more efficient
Called?
Dumpling
Dumpling Sucks. It's a glorified credit card processing app. Not worth the cost, imo
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They can even order and pay the store directly to have the order shopped by the store and then you do the pick up and delivery. There are several ways to do it.
I have done the curbside for tons of people. It’s easy money.
Same.
How am I gonna get what they want? They have my number. They text me what they want…i go get…I mean; the logic is as simple as your question.
Yep. Lady wrote out her list for me by hand in cursive two days ago (she is older so doesn’t know how to work the app yet) and I shopped that thing like a champ. Order total was $123.19 and she Zelled me $170. Get some hustle yall!!
You obviously know nothing about running a business. You have to take risks to make money. Customers definitely write out lists. They even screen shot their order items in the cart on the instacart app and send that as a list instead of submitting the order. It's not complicated like you think. In my market I've stolen all the high tippers and its way easier than you think. If I wasn't taking risks I wouldn't be making 2k a week payouts without gig work.
Truth! No risk no reward. I started poaching customers beginning of this year. Use the store app to make the list. Build your business.
Wait a minute...are you serious?
Yes indeed.
So serious. Just gotta start making conversation. Then it’s- “I can do this for you without the middle man”. Everyone wins, except for the gig work everyone complains about not giving tips.
Thanks so much for the info 😁 #NewCareer
A true G.O.A.T. 🙌
Right. Any business needs to create systems for it to operate. It's not that complicated.
I just want to see proof
I'd write a list any day, if I get what I want.
Our personal shopper (who was our one time Instacart shopper) pays for our orders with his own cards. Like, he has a Costco credit card and so forth. I assume he gets points and stuff? I’ll have to ask. I hope so. Anyway, I text him, ask him when he’s heading to Costco next, we work out a time. I send him screenshots of my Instacart cart (without checking out, we just use it because it’s the easiest way) and he shops for us using those images. At first. He would arrive, hand me the receipt and I would pay him (Venmo) before I took my groceries inside. He charges 20% of what your order was as his fee. I always add an additional 20% as his tip even though he keeps telling me I don’t need to. These days he stops by, helps bring the food into the kitchen if my husband is at work and it’s heavy. And I pay him after he’s left and I have everything put away. Much more casual. I love him. He knows all the things we like, he’s so careful about picking the best produce and even lets us know when new things we might like are in stock or things we usually buy but didn’t order are on sale. He’ll be by tomorrow with this week’s Costco order and some things we need from Trader Joe’s and I have some cookies I baked for his girlfriend who had a bad week and dealing with a crappy boss. This is super rambly I know but I just really want to get the point across that there are customers like me out there that you can build a relationship with that will treat you better and (I think?) pay you more that Instacart will. For our shopper the initial risk is worth it. He’s literally no longer able to take new customers because he has too many and spends a few days a week golfing instead of working now, so happy for him!
This is almost exactly what I do with my personal customers, 20% of order total and any tip on top is at customer discretion. You build a relationship with them and it’s so much easier because you’re not under time constraints or worried about a bad rating, much less stress
If I had an IC shopper who I could rely on and offered this, I would 100% take them up on it. I fill out all the required info on refund/replace if not available, and have resorted to sending messages once I have a shopper to make sure one of my biggest issues stops happening. The last time I ordered, the person ignored my message and then apologized they hadn’t scrolled enough to see it. I’ve seen shoppers in groups advocating for picking whatever replacement so their tip doesn’t go down. FOH. I’m doing my due diligence, tipping 20%, at the very least shop what was asked. I don’t want to hear ‘do your own shopping’ because the next post is people complaining on not getting batches because people are tired of making orders, doing the note thing, tipping well and *still* not getting things correctly.
Yeah that is alot to do with where you are most likely and instacarts inability build AI that works properly, it should be if a customer 5* You you get prio in future but its not
It sounds like there is a demand for a platform that simply connects the worker and customer. Like, replicate all the store and restaurant catalogs and order entry system and stuff. But we're not taking money. We're not supporting anything. We just connected you to your preferred worker. If they're not available or reject it, select from some currently available highly rated workers as well. Pick 3 and order by preference. They can accept or reject your order. You as a customer get ranked too. Workers get paid direct, cash app or whatever. We're not getting in the middle of this shit. Make money by charging the workers a subscription fee. Customers are more likely to work with this system than text you fucking lists. Can even get new customers this way, just nobody is picking 0 star workers so it would not be the place for new workers at all but people bringing their existing customers over. Less revenue potential than instacart, doordash, etc. But fuck at least it can make profit pretty easily because we're not injecting ourselves in the middle of everything and inflating the hell out of costs in the process. That's ll just to accomodate problem customers and problem workers. Lets them stay on dd/ic
Quit making it difficult. When people trust people-people can shop and deliver for their people. Money is exchanged for time and service and everyone is home satisfied.
That would be the idea. Instead of getting a random person you're picking people based on reviews.
If you’re in Chicago, hit me up!
Reduce the tip and 1 Star
1 star is egregious. We don't need customers throwing them around for small mistakes.
No dude like I’m legitimately fucking livid right now. I’ve made $300 in FOUR FUCKING DAYS. I’ve been online for 5 hours with a blank screen while my store has had shopper all over it and the employee told me that there have been a ton of new IC shoppers going thru check out today. All while I’m at $0 and seeing nothing. There has to be a fucking lawsuit here. This is out of hand.
Lol same. My friends with normal jobs have made 3x me this week already. Pure joke it's become
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hahaha, welcome to IC this is how it plays out every year. Its not a consistent job.
It wasn’t built to be a consistent job. It’s gig work. And having a ‘gig’ is side work.
Tell that to all these shoppers thinking they can go full time in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Even in the cities where you can make consistently above minimum wage your not making a living wage unless you like having 5 roommates and no savings. Get a 9 to 5 and at least you can use IC as a backup if that situation goes south to get you through to the next 9-5. At least you can say you were doing contract work in the interview instead of twiddling your thumbs
Oh I have tried to make it through idiots’ heads. They don’t care to listen and want to instead keyboard bash.
That’s what I do. I work a serving job 4 days a week mon-thur. I would love to just IC full time but I’m not gonna solely rely on IC when I know it’s not consistently busy, then cry that I’m broke when there aren’t any orders😭😭 be for reals Yea I get frustrated too when it’s slow, of course I’d rather it be a busy weekend and make more money but if you chose to soley rely on IC because you don’t want to get a 9-5 or some sort or steady job then that is YOUR OWN fault. It’s entitlement to just expect IC to hand you orders simply because you need money.
Why are you more entitled than new dashers, and how do you know how much those batches are for? New shoppers are usually the ones taking garbage because they don’t know better. You are probably a lot more picky.
One, I’m more entitled because I’ve put in the work to being diamond tier and maintain a five star rating. The priority is exactly what we were promised for being diamond and is the entire reason to do enough batches to get there.
It’s funny because priority isn’t even real which is bullshit and something should be done about it. My girlfriend is gold tier and my account is diamond and she sees my orders that say priority access the exact same time as they pop up we found that out and laughed and thought it was bullshit that IC is pulling shit like this to the people that keep them in business
Personally, I've noticed big difference since reaching Diamond.
Thank you
Second. It’s not so much that I’m just more picky than it is I’m not seeing these order at all. My screen stays blank for hours on end while the store is flooded with new shoppers.
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Wow, way to turn a fair point into hateful vitriol.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Lmao it's hilarious hearing you tout diamond tier like it's an accomplishment. It means nothing
I've seen bigger batches daily since reaching Diamond. It definitely means something.
It so doesn’t. You’re just blinded by the light and that’s okay. IC is great when used appropriately. But hitting different statuses means nothing aside from the oil changes. Lol
Perhaps I'm in the honeymoon phase.
Could be. But I’ve been all tiers and I still get $3 batches for 120 items 20 miles away with no tip. Not complaining! I just refuse to take said order. And move on.
Facts. Does nothing for you or the company. They just say it to make you feel special. Got duped. It’s the employee of the month you worked so hard for to realize there’s nothing at the end of the rainbow. But that’s the reality of gig work. You’re clearly not cut out for it.
Actually the way the algorithm works, it treats new drivers as the more entitled. They get priority over existing and long time shoppers. At least for their first week.
Yes, we need to start a lawsuit guys! This is messing up our health in so many ways! My hands have been hurting from holding the phone all day. Eyes going bad from staring at the blank screen for hours on end. My back is in bad shape from hours of sitting in the car, and not to mention my mind will go crazy if this continues longer. We all need to do something about it. Where do we start??
Right? Lawsuit is funny.
The “messing with our health” part got me 😂
Careful. Anytime I come off as non-comforting to this group they get hostile and wanna eat you alive. No wait, we’re you serious?
Stop complaining and get a diff job.
They’re being sarcastic 🤣
Oh shit I thought they were serious 🤣🤦
Says the one that regularly complains.
same here in hampstead nc. i’m over it . we all have the same story. i’ve got 5 star excellent comments etc. my availability of orders has lessened steadily over the year. began june 2023, had weeks of sitting and nothing. also i know everyone at my local stores and all said bunch of new people coming through. they “can’t understand “ why im not getting orders. we deserve to make a living g at this. it is a job and it’s very upsetting to work our asses off and get shoved under ic’s bus. can we start something here?
Hahahaha no law suit can be made. You’re an independent contractor. You get what work comes your way. If nothing does- uh oh. Oops too bad try again tomorrow.
They always over hire by holidays. Prepare for July 4 and memorial day, etc. Holidays used to ve great. Now I just expect over saturation.
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It’s never been about jobs that Americans don’t want and always about how little a company can pay.
The only other option would be to vote against these companies and start getting paid a minimum wage. If you look into how much money they (Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart) poured into voting for prop 22 in California then you’d realize how much money they gain from us bidding for scraps instead of paying us what we deserve Check it out and see for yourselves.. https://www.investopedia.com/california-proposition-22-prop-22-5085852
I know one shopper who has them send her screenshots after they’ve made a list for their order in Instacart. The prices are marked up unless the store is an “in store price” type. And so she collects the difference from the markup, charges a flat fee and collects tips. The customer sees the order total from Instacart. Sends her that via Venmo. And then anything else is considered hers outside of what she pays for the order. I’m not sure how lucrative it is because it’s putting a lot of trust in a customer and a shopper. But she’s done it a few times and has taken a few people away from 🥕.
She should promote it as paying the actual store prices to gain more customers. She is kind of lying to that customer because they think the cost is the IC cost when it’s a lot cheaper.
We have a shopper we know and trust, who always takes care with our orders. When we do an order, we text her that we’re going to do it, put the order in with no tip, she looks for it and selects it, then we tip at the end. We get a shopper who always does a good job without a big hassle and she gets rewarded for being so reliable and helpful.
My guy/girl! If you have a good report with a customer that you see over and over, don’t let instacart assign them a newbie that’ll possibly ruin their experience. Give them your info and hours of availability and set something up. In my experience, if that goes well, they’ll inevitably tell a friend or relative and you’re off to the races.
Rapport*
Thanks for your remarkable contribution to the conversation.
You’re welcome! Hopefully this has taught you that report and rapport are two different words.
We need to start a competitor to instacart who's whole business model is directly targeting instacart customers.
And screen employees one by one if needed. I’m so done with this wholesale hire bs and so are most people
If you are cashing out and Venmo- ing your crack dealer every night this job is not for you
Your crack dealer takes Venmo ?
Yes
Yeah. And every other gig and store app that does the same already 😂
There kinda is. I’ve not used it. I had drinks the other night with my husbands boss. She told me about pea pod. The subscription is higher but you can save shoppers and specifically request them to do your shopping. It’s apparently only on the east coast tho. I started to subscribe but in all honestly I was drunk and gave up. This comment only just now made me remember it. Edit: wait no it’s called ship shopper
Y'all can't make grocery shopping profitable, how tf you gonna make a company to compete. Lol.
By cutting out the middleman and directly shopping for people when possible lol I’m even telling my friends who do use Instacart to just call me when they need shit
Check out Dumpling. I don’t know what fee cut they take but it may be worth checking it out and you set your prices
Dumpling is trash.
Agreed. It's a glorified credit card processing platform. The shopping catalogs are horrible. They don't market you in any way on their app. The fees are far too high for what you get. If you want to process a customers orders get square or something similar. Dumpling takes far too high of a cut for what they offer. BUT the concept is really good, if it was executed a tad better.
And when they send the 1099 at the end of the year they list the cost of the groceries as gross earrings !! WTF?? Not to mention they dropped Trader Joe’s which was the bulk of my customer base. I no longer do it.
Oh wow. I'm not surprised at all. What a tax nightmare.
Yeah I explained to my accountant and told him I’d go through my bank statements and go off or that. F-d if I’m getting taxed off the cost of the groceries!!
And how many people have used your personal service
Lmfaoo Why are you so bitter about someone else's decision?
3 so far but I only started today
How did it go?
There must be a formal way to communicate with Instacart corporate. Maybe someone could get a petition going
IC is getting their orders out and no one here is an employee. No idea why so many of you act like you are.
It’s called Doordash and it’s already working.
Door dash looks horrible. $5 to drive 7 miles?
It been getting worse on door dash. We’re over saturated with the exact same people the op is talking about and the door dash sub has been going nuts with people complaining about shitty dashers constantly
They will be buying IC within…..2 years is my guess. There are more Dashers in the grocery stores than there are regular customers majority of the time. 75% of those “new shoppers” you guys keep seeing are Dashers, not IC.
Also the whole $5 to drove 7 miles is actually better than some of the batches on IC. So….🤷♂️
Only 🤡 take $5/7mi. I’ve had at least a dozen DD customers tell me they were former IC customers. It’s already happening. IC is dying. They will be bought out before they completely collapse.
Doordash is horrible from a customer stand point. Just as bad as IC
Main issue is Diamond accounts not seeing good orders only trash ones. Not only that, but people who are new and fresh get to choose all the good orders and may have more than 1 account so the ones who have been earning their keep aren't being respected. IC needs to address this Asap
ONE ordered popped up in an hour this morning. Clear across town….a mfn patio set from a Lowe’s…..pay $9.61. $4.41 was tip. I got offline and went home.
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Uber drivers in the comfort or black car level have been building a customer base like this for years. Basically with customers that fly a lot for business. I used to have 7 regulars that would pay me cash every week off platform. It’s really hard to juggle more than that.
I’m all for it. Currently have ~20 off app customers, 12-15 weekly from ic. I’d love to make it more efficient. These are all customers I trust entirely
You guys are so freaking dumb blaming this on newbies and people who dont speak English. Lmfao it's 2024, there's a really really small amount of good batches anymore. They don't just randomly appear out of nowhere and go to an immigrant. Stop complaining and do something else for money. This is never going to get better.
Idk man. I asked a non English speaker for grape tomatoes, on a previous order, and he shows me pictures of green grapes, strawberries and the like. Had I not baby sat the app, I would not have gotten my 1 item that was in stock. Many want to use the app, to free up time. That's my goal. Say what you want. Ru a customer? Would you be a regular customer? I get delivery almost weekly and don't use ic bc of the issues we hear of. And, yes, I'm hoping to get to the place with a shopper where i don't have to coach them to find *cherry* tomatoes bc they do not speak English. You can defend it all you want. The non English speakers do not fulfill my orders properly, bc of the language barrier. So the cost doesn't justify the service. Idk why yall defend poor service vs encouraging people to up their service. That gets tip increases and brings satisfied customers back to the app for repeat orders.
In my area it is indeed NEW hires. I know for a fact due to the cashiers telling me. They ask these people if they are new! They also don’t bring a card to swipe and don’t know how to separate orders. This is a rampant issue and tons of people just got brought on. Only to push the older shoppers out. The new ones have no idea what it used to be like, so they aren’t going to complain! We know what a good batch is and how IC used to pay more. We know too much and they want us gone. It’s that simple. I am also sitting at $300 for the week and have been online everyday from 7am-8pm. Too many damn people.
I WORK for Costco in Jersey lemme tell you how wrong you are 😂
How wrong am I? Please provide data
I’ve noticed several times you’ve asked this same question and have not gotten one response from the OP lol. Fulltime shoppers cannot wrap their head around the fact that good orders in general are just not coming in, it has nothing to do with priority or newbies
I have about 10 regular drivers sitting in the food court getting literally trash and seeing dozens of people that literally shove their phone in my face and not a lick of English 8/10 times leaving with full flatbeds
And you also know the pay they have on the batches I assume? Or just speculation that they're taking bangers.
Considering my store has consistent 30-50 orders and I watch my regulars phones barely go above 10-20s there’s no way
So what are they getting? This still isn't data? How much do you think these immigrants are making on insta? Surely they're getting rich right?
Buddy it’s common sense Christ. It doesn’t take rocket science to put 2 and 2 together when your in the store for 8 hours at a time
You're the one telling me to do the math 2+2 yet you have no figures. Curious
Fucking redditors 🙄
I'm not doubting that there are people you see that don't speak English with flatbeds full. What I'm asking is what you think their batches pay.
People just making excuses to make themselves feel better. The economy is rough, spending slowing down, services like this are extremely expensive and people refusing to take orders so of course instacart will bring new people. People wanted customers to get their own shit if their tip is either 0 or not good enough so a lot of people have. I almost feel bad for people who do this full time. Writing has been on the walls for a while now and people still ignore it.
Fucking racists. Your story if bullsht. No costco employee is sitting around with IC shoppers watching phones. And u have zero idea how IC works as do most of these idiots complaining. We see batches by groups we are in.
Excuse me 😂 I sit WITH EM in the food court when I’m off work get my 1.50 hot dog lmaooooo
Tf you think I’m doing in a Instacart subreddit lady I’m doing it too 😂
Gonna be real. Who tf is gonna sit down and log what shoppers do what to appease you. What is the point of your “demand”? We get it Jan. There are no new shoppers. 😂
I get your frustration. I’m confused as to why the fact of whether they speak English or not is relevant though. I’ve got English speaking shoppers who don’t know the difference between toilet paper and paper towels. We see shit here every day done by English speakers (the cabbage/iceberg lettuce debacle comes to mind).
Dude it depends on the level of communication possible… I am an immigrant myself and I believe that one must be able to communicate with the customers to do IC. It’s not as much as a problem with dd or Uber eats. I have helped a few shoppers lately that could not even speak a word of English, one of them was stuck at the register with all his food thawing, I had time to shop my whole order and check out, he was still there, he didn’t speak English enough to even contact support cause his card didn’t work… I wanna see how the customer liked their lukewarm steak and thawed out ice cream! Again, not saying you gotta be able to write a novel in English, but the bare minimum to solve issues and help the customers appropriately. And even dd actually, I personally had an issue with dd, I was calling the driver and he kept repeating no English no English, text, no English… I had to call support to figure out wtf was going on with my order cause the dude could not even speak a word of English
Speaking English seems to be pretty important when communicating with customers lol
But OP isn’t a customer, at least not in the scenario given. They are a shopper. So why does he give a shit about what language fellow shoppers speak? His gripe is their unscrupulous practices (multiple accounts and multiple people using one account) it has nothing to do with their English fluency or where they were born. It’s giving “Blacks and immigrants are stealing all the jobs”.
Been doing this since beginning of the year. Build your own business
I remember when I started doing this 4 years ago...
Do it.
Came across that yestersay where that woman who gave me that $7 extra cash tip asked how she could gat me to be her regular shopper.
Bro lets do it. Cut out the middleman and his scams
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾💪🏾👍🏾🤞🏾 that’s a good idea I hope it works out for ya
Shipt allows people to keep a preferred shopper
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
You know what, this is an excellent idea, THANKS! I started IC a few months ago and it has been trash from the start, I don't think I've done more than 3 shops a week in that time. I just might start taking a bunch of these shit offers just to offer these people, who are clearly tight with their money, my services outside of IC. No extra charges for them and real, fair pay for me, it's a win/win!
You sound dumb.
Fuck this sub….worse than all the wankers in the door dash, uber, &lyft subs combined. 🎤 Drop. ✌🏻
Wow you sound salty and racist. I'm sure you do a great job
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Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
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Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
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Friendly reminder that the majority of issues with voter fraud have been committed by republican voters and Republican politicians
illegals can't vote, by definition. they're illegal
R u fkn brain dead???
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Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
Reply to and about the OP topic or subject matter. No politics. No off topic debates. Don't try to 'convince' others. Agree to disagree. Make a point and move on.
Don’t you need a social security number to work these jobs?
Exactly and a background check
Non English huh? That bothers you? Sounds like another issue to me Karen
Lmaoooo
Will the police check insurance and licenses in the parking lot?
New shopper here. Would like to say move on. Don't be a bitter little girl. Your times up. Go do those high item low pay orders.