Instacart announces changes to Batch access

Instacart (tech giant competitor to Shipt) has been known for controversy - from tip baiting to getting sued by the Attorney General for illegal fees, to being on the spotlight for laying off thousands of In-store shoppers .

As of today, they’ve announced new criteria for access to batches for Shoppers. Batches are ‘shops’ or otherwise known as orders.

Batch(es)/Shop(s) = Order(s) = groceries.

In the past, they used to require Shoppers to put themselves on a schedule to be allowed to Shop. The times varied by day, for example from 9am to 12pm, or 12pm to 3pm, but once a shopper was on the schedule, they would get sent batches to their phones. It determined their availability. And since Shoppers are independent contractors, they have freedom of choosing whatever Shop suits them best. It’s up to the shopper to either accept or decline the batch(es) - whether it’s because it’s a low paying order with no tip or a great one.

In 2019, they introduced a feature known as On-Demand. The premise of On-Demand was that they were doing away with the schedule and doing a free-for-all. Batches would now be available on the app for any Shopper to shop. No schedule, just orders sitting on the app for any Shopper(s) to take. This was entirely dependent on demand. If there were no orders being placed on the Instacart platform, then there are no orders for Shoppers to fulfill.

Fast forward to June 14, 2021, Instacart sent Shoppers this email below:

Email sent to Shoppers nationwide today

With these new changes in place as of today, there are additional barriers for Shoppers to be able to access batches, as mentioned in an email sent to Shoppers today.

• Customer Demand

• Store Location

  • This is similar to DoorDash’s hotspots.

• Customer Ratings

• “and more”

Many Shoppers feel like they weren’t represented in this change nor were their voices heard. Instacart claims that 75% of Shoppers have provided this feedback to them, but they also acknowledged that this survey was done “with participating Shoppers.” Whatever that means. Shoppers are not happy about this.

The factors represent a big problem for Shoppers. With these barriers in place, some feel like their access to batches will be eliminated, or completely diminished.

One of the biggest reason for this feeling is that customers who place orders through the Instacart platform often times give Shoppers bad ratings despite a wonderful shopping service. Sometimes customers marking items as not received and/or delivered (even though they were) causes the system to give the customer an automatic refund, but leaving the Shopper with a lower satisfaction rating, causing them to potentially be deactivated from the platform for not maintaining a good rating under Instacart’s platform rules.

Others feel that Shoppers should be allowed to rate customers so that it maintains equilibrium on the platform. As aforementioned, there are bad customers all over that like to mark items as not received so they get free items and/or their money back. Under this model, bad customers would or should be booted off the platform for unfairly using it and rating bad despite perfect service.

The parts where they mention store location presume the closer you are the store, the better the algorithms will offer you a batch.

It is still unclear what the “and more” part means of their email, so we will just have to wait and see.

Do you take issue with Instacart’s new barrier(s) to Batch access?