Jarryd B.

A $217 grocery order costs me over $27.00 to get delivered by Instacart, after all their fees. This includes a $10 tip to the driver/shopper, but I think less than10 is unreasonable to leave them. I would probably leave them more if their employer wasn't reaching so deep into my pockets. They charge you extra if you have bottled water etc in your order. They call it a "heavy order fee". I could see if they asked you to leave your shopper an extra tip for a heavy order, or charged you extra and gave more to the driver on their end, but they clearly just pocket it. Can you explain to me why a "heavy order" affects Instacart's business model, so that they have to charge more? It doesn't. It's not even possible. It's pure greed. Only the shopper is affected by a "heavy order", not Instagreed. Just like the fact that they have a service fee as well as a delivery fee, and both are percentages based on your order total: pure greed. They also do sneaky things on their app to try and dupe customers out of even more money (there is a pattern here: greed). They make it take extra clicks to change the delivery tip, and if you choose a new tip but don't hit the "save" button at the wayyyy bottom (most people probably won't even see that button), then it doesn't actually change the tip amount on the order and you may not even notice. Also after you place an order they say "choose $6 (or however much) of more product to be eligible for free shipping on your order". Then they give you a list of other items to pick. But what they don't tell you is that it has to be $6 of very specific promotional items, and most of the items on the list that they give you are NOT the special promotional items. So if you're not paying attention (or a poor older person that doesn't understand technology), you could be ordering a bunch of extra things that aren't even getting you close to free shipping. By the way, the promotional items are garbage things that have zero nutritional value. Companies are clearly struggling to sell them, so they have no problem working with shady companies like Instacart to literally trick people into buying their "food". Aside from the shady tricks on the app, the immensely overcharged fees, and the completely made-up fees on top of fees, I've never had bad service, and I've been grateful for delivered groceries during the pandemic. But that's exactly what Instacart has taken advantage of. Instead of just chilling out with their greed, and keeping prices reasonable, which would have probably made a lifetime customer out of me, I am now going to without question stop using Instacart as soon as covid is out of the picture. They have a counter that shows how much time you've saved by using their app. What they should do is divide it by how much extra you've paid by using their app. That would give you a sense of how much an hour or two of your life is worth. And I guarantee that would open your eyes to never using their service again.