Andrea H.

After using Peapod for a long time I decided to give Instacart a try as they usually have same-day delivery times available. After using Instacart several times, as best I can tell, it's a complete scam. First, they try to slam a 10% "service fee" on every order, and there is no way to indicate in settings that you wish to waive it, so you have to waive it at checkout every single time. Then, if items are "unavailable", the shopper will attempt to substitute with a similar replacement. This would not be an issue in theory; however,
Many items I *know* are available at pretty much every grocery store in the country end up getting substituted out for something else and 95% of the time the replacement is a more expensive option, sometimes significantly more expensive. Of course the lemon scent was not available, the tropical scent costs 80 cents more, so that's the one I'm going to have to pay for. Not to mention the fact that most products already are marked up from the in-store price.

Beyond the scammish nature of the pricing and shopping process, most of the shoppers could care less if you get what you need. You get alerts while they are shopping, which you have to watch carefully. If you miss them, and they complete your order, you can no longer communicate with the shopper so you are stuck with their decisions. Gluten-free items may be swapped out for whole wheat items (very, very bad if you have celiac disease or a wheat allergy), or items may be cancelled and refunded altogether if the shopper doesn't feel like searching for them. I started including notes in my order with instructions as to where the items might be found ("please look for gluten-free aisle in the store"), and even then it is often ignored. Too bad for you if a key item for a recipe is unavailable and the shopper is too lazy to message you to ask about suitable replacements.

I'm going back to Peapod. Prices on the site are honored and only very rarely are items out of stock. Just have to order a little further ahead of time.