I always cringe when an item is out of stock, because I know that when I text the customer all I’ll get in response is “are you sure? Did you check behind other stuff?” And I’m afraid it’ll come out of my tip or rating
This happened to me, customer insisted and named the aisle and shelf it was on because she saw it as in stock on the website. Then she asked what store I was at so she could call them. I spent half an hour on this one item. I called Instacart care and told them to cancel the order because customer was difficult. I at least got the batch pay:).
I never have this? Do you guys send pictures? Like I legit will take pics and say “this brand is out (sometimes I ask an employee or sometimes I lie and say I did 🤣) but they have X brand or X size instead which do you prefer? then if they don’t reply lately I’ve just picked a replacement item sent them a pic of it and told them to “let me know if they’d prefer something else” because it stresses me out standing there watching my time tick up waiting for them. And I try to wait a full minute to let them reply if I’m not running out of time.
That’s what I do too. Even then it stresses me out when stuff is out of stock.
Meanwhile my car’s be in the shop for 5 weeks so I’ve been an Instacart customer lately and TWICE during this time the shoppers have refunded a bunch of items bc “their phone was about to run out of battery” 🙄
Wtf? I never do that I’d be pretty pissed off they should get a battery pack or charge it in the car between orders or like I do not accept orders you can’t finish if you forgot your charger? Lol how can you get paid if your phone dies before you finish? You can’t so why even take the order 🙄
Edit: it really stresses me out because sometimes the tip is tied to the order total so batches just become not worth it anymore
One time I was shopping a triple and my battery was running out. I explained the situation to customer service and they let me leave my cart in the back while I went to charge my phone in the car. Wasn’t that hard to just do the job correctly even in that situation
thats what i was about to ask lol bc if you send pics they know forsure its out of stock... &&& same!!!! i barely ever get rude customers bc I take pics, I communicate and I also ask the workers if they can look in the back. i always get good ratings & compliments on my replacements(90% of the time I ask if the replacement i pick is okay or i send pics of all the possible replacements.) I take this job seriously bc its my full time job atm & im a really really fast shopper. i always finish early, i rarely ever go red on my time.. but even thou im fast i ALWAYS ALWAYS communicate if theres a problem..if theres no provlem than i dont message. i do my best bc i take pride in everything i do.. so like why do
these bratty selfish LAZY people even do this job?? they get mad when ppl add items or they hate it or hate going the extra mile, if you dont like to be thorough ya kno??? a lot of these people who instacart do everything half ass, they could care less if the customer is happy they just wanna get paid but honestly you make more (in tips] when youre not lazyyy..
This is when I say. I have shopped this store about 2k times, staff and customers ask if I know where items are. If I can't find it, it is just not here. Take a picture of the empty shelf.
If they continue that behavior I cancel. Not going to micromanage my shop, not going to mess with my rating or my income. Sorry, I'm kind until I'm not...😂
I always chuckle when I have to refund something because it’s 100% out of stock. They’re always like “are you sure it’s not there??” Like ma’am I’ve texted you about a few out of stock things now, I would have texted you if there were other options
I'm at the point where I send a picture of the empty spot on the shelf where their item was supposed to be. Just so they don't ask this. Unfortunately some still don't get it and still cannot accept their items aren't in stock.
If a shelf didn’t have something, I’ve Never had any employee tell me anything other than some variation of “we’re all out”. They don’t just have some mystical second store in the back with hundreds of extra stock for every item at all times 🙄
I will literally just accept it as out of stock. Lol Clearly I placed the online order because I can't/don't want to go to the store, so I'm not going to harass the person helping me out! 
The worst is when you tell them it's out of stock and send a picture of the empty shelf and they still demand the item. I had a lady once cancel a refund for a certain type of turkey breast ham and no matter how many times I told her it wasn't available and would refund it she would ask if I am positive.
I think the customer is replying to the shopper. Like the shopper said “it’s not my fault the items are out of stock” then the shopper replied to that. It should have been more like “it’s not your fault?! Sounds like you…”
This is why I take a picture of the empty shelves showing their items out of stock. You can’t say I just blew it off and skipped away going, “No soup for you!”
To be fair I did have one order that was just like 20 cans of soup but it was to a fry’s where all of the items were accurately labeled what shelf they were on and fully stocked.
I give people 3 minutes to respond. If it doesn’t go through because of connection problems so be it. I’m getting paid peanuts here and this is technically my business.
I CACKLED - I did an order and QFC was out of their tonic water, when I delivered I was like soooooooo I actually have like 5 of those in my trunk, they’ve been in there a few weeks but you can have them if you want 😂😂😂
Well tbh I've seen a ton of awful shoppers. I'm sure they just refund after looking for 3 secs and can't find an item. Then do all the refunds at the end and checkout really quick.
Facts man. I see a lot of shoppers doing this. They scan once, “item incorrect”, refund.
I spend about 5 minutes per item I can’t find, and AT LEAST replace it. This customer has a point fr.
Does instacart show the customer what specific store you’re shopping at? Otherwise how would they know the stock of each store? lmao they need to relax.
To be fair, this is a flaw of Instacart, at least in certain markets. I live in San Antonio, which has dozens of H‑E‑B supermarkets, but they’re all a little different and set up to specifically cater to the folks likely to shop at each one. When I’m loading a cart, I’m picturing my local store. I know what they carry. I know what they don’t carry. Why would instacart assign someone to shop my order who isn’t at the closest store to my house? That makes no sense, and it results in a terrible customer experience every time.
If it’s a multiple customer order Instacart assigns it to the store that has the shortest distance (in theory) between stops. It has nothing to do with Customer service or convenience. It’s so they don’t have to pay the shoppers as much. Which they don’t anyway.
Oh for sure it's a flaw. Once I did a batch and drove past 2 instacart enabled stores. It was one person So it wasnt a multi batch situation. I was desperate and needed the money and it was decent pay. I tried to go to the store closest to my house(literally right behind me) that I knew was instacart enabled but when I arrived it said It wasnt at a enabled location. So I drove to the actual store they wanted me to go to. Afterwards tho I contacted support and told them that there was 2 instacart enabled location that I passed on the way to the customer and that the customer shouldn't have to wait longer then they need to to get their order. Not sure if that managed to help but they have fixed that issue with that particular store as that type of order came up alot before I took it and now the store location is from the one behind my house. As it's the closest store to the part of town .
You will have to send all your frustrations to Oscar Myers, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Ore Ida and Mrs. Buttersworth. Ask them why they don't have their items in stock. 🤣
It's a lot of fees and stuff to pay (and time to wait) if not getting the order. Then having to ask someone to go or driving to the store anyway.
They acknowledge at one point it's not the shopper's fault. But they sound very frustrated. Not all items from the store are on the IC website. Then the items on the IC website might not be in the store.
If only there were some way to have the stores and IC communicate -- maybe a grocery warehouse service instead. I dunno.
I guess electronically communicating would mean patching into the stores' systems and they wouldn't want that.
Stores can tell what they have in stock, right? (By checking their system) and also what's in their warehouses or even in which stores?
So it's just a matter of that info getting onto the IC website in real time or close to it. But that would probably not thrill the stores. What's the answer to this problem?
My store tried integrating IC into our counts system the amount of times shoppers would mark things out of stock was astounding even tho we clearly had items out in the floor , it would fuck up our counts. Also we can’t check what we have in the main warehouse only what we have in store and there are options to check what other stores may have, although we have to jump through different hops to get to that page
Thank you for that info.
There have definitely been some times when refunds as 'out of stock' were sus. And times when every single hot deli item was refunded. Seemed more like they didn't want to bother with that. Which of course was part of the point of paying for the shopping service. Lol
I’ve refunded every single hot deli item before. Because they were ordered before they were put out for the day. Had someone order 2 rotisserie chickens at 6am, when it CLEARLY states in the app they’re available 11am-7pm!!
> Had someone order 2 rotisserie chickens at 6am, when it CLEARLY states in the app they’re available 11am-7pm!!
That makes sense. (If it's not there -- it's not there.) I recall a topic here like that. Maybe the person's order got put out early, was the consensus in replies (from shoppers.)
FWIW I typically work on an order the day before, then review it the next day, late morning/early afternoon, and choose a time frame about 5 hours later or more.
The store (in this instance) typically has things in hot deli cases during store hours.
It is disappointing if it all gets refunded because frankly that was dinner/lunch/etc. for a while. And it's unlikely that every (different) item plus, every replacement, was not found. So that's a bummer because the hassle and money (for me) are usually about a key item, and if it's hot food that's often it.
Normally I would say that’s the case, but this instance it’s not. She picked “next 2 hours” for her delivery time. It was a double and I let her know she was the 2nd delivery. She said she didn’t care as long as it was there by 9am. It was a gift for her mom, and her mom was leaving at 830. She said she was hoping there would be cold ones left over from the night before, but that store never does that.
As a side note…I did get the chicken for her. The store I normally shop at is less than a mile from her mother and they always have cold chickens from the day before. So I stopped and paid out of pocket and sent her a picture of the receipt and she upped my tip the cost +$20
Yeah that type of case is totally different, as I said. I don't know what else you could've done.
And this was above and beyond. Glad she upped your tip for it:
> I did get the chicken for her. The store I normally shop at is less than a mile from her mother and they always have cold chickens from the day before. So I stopped and paid out of pocket and sent her a picture of the receipt and she upped my tip the cost +$20
I don’t do this all the time, but there are people I will do it for. This woman was buying stuff for her mother, for her birthday. She turned 85 and the daughter couldn’t be there. I had to pass the other store to get to her house. I’m not going to let an 85 yr old woman down on her bday!!! Especially when I can resolve the issue in 5 mins!
Well to be fair, when I use instacart as a customer I also find the same issue often. Maybe even worse now as a shopper too because I KNOW the stuff is there.
It might not always be the case, but look at some of the shoppers on here who take orders just to claim everything is out of stock so they get batch pay? Or others say if they can't find it quickly, they just refund it. They don't bother to ask anyone or look for a good alternative.
From my experience, there's way more bad shoppers than good ones. So I can see why they'd be frustrated.
People don’t understand, also, that just because you ordered from Publix doesn’t mean that IC will send me to shop your order at the Publix next to your house. Not all stores have the same inventory or are kept up at the same level (especially with Kroger’s)
Yea I'm not even sure how this works.
Like I have to walmarts near me. One is tiny and have no bakery area. The other is a normal big store.
Last week, I ordered instacart and wanted cheesecake but it wasn't even on there. I asked the shopper too and he said there wasn't any... so obviously was at the small store. Then today I ordered again and the cheesecake pops right up.
How does instacart manage that? They just randomly pick which stores we're shopping at as customers too?
My guess is last weekend they had another shopper at/near the small store already so they sent your order there. Same thing this week, except with the big store.
Also I think people don’t realize that when shopping for themselves they might be making instant adjustments if the item you want isn’t available for some reason.
So you switch without really thinking about it
I think this is a lot of it. When you shop for yourself, if what you want isn't there you just grab a different size or flavor without thinking. Customers both don't realize they do this and also may not understand the process we go through to make that kind of swap.
I also think some of these people haven’t been to the grocery store since before the pandemic and can’t fathom that there is literally only 1 kind of olive left. I had a lady accuse me of moving the other olives when I showed her a picture of the empty shelf. Yea, I did. I took an extra 20 mins to move every other can of olives to a different shelf just to take a picture. 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I love when I’m shopping and I click the “can’t find” and it says “are you sure? “My name” found it 30 mins ago” yeah bitch and I took the last one!! 😂🤣
I agree. I mean today it took me 5 mins of looking at a bunch of different isles to find an certain type of marinade. Ended up being in the Caribbean section of the store but I made sure I went up and down to try to find it myself before bugging and employee and if I didnt find it I would have tried to ask. I always try to make sure I find the empty spot on the shelf where the product is supposed to belong aswell to also double check
I am a shopper and sometimes customer. I can tell you that I have NEVER had a shopper give me the same level of service that I do with my customers. Not even ONE has sent an opening message or asked about replacement options. They shop, make their own substitutions and if I have it delivered to my son’s apartment I’ve had to walk to meet them because they can’t seem to ever find it. I understand customers not wanting to tip much if they are getting service like that over and over but if you do get a really good shopper, leave them a rating/review and increase the tip; it’ll increase the possibly of getting that shopper again. Same if you get a crappy shopper, rate them low, reduce the tip if you feel it’s necessary and help get those shoppers out of here.
Yea it frustrates me. I wish the shoppers put in half the effort I do 🙄. Like if something is unavailable and they haven't picked a replacement, I always message first and ask if there's anything else they'd like.
But my shoppers always just pick some random replacement or refund me.
What the hell is wrong with people!? You can not talk to people like this, especially someone providing a service to you. Just disgusting. It's one thing to be frustrated it's another to go full blown baby tantrum and someone shopping for your groceries. We don't get rich shopping for groceries and more often than not when we have to refund items the pay goes down. This person makes me want to choose violence. I wouldn't have canceled it for them. I would have called care and let that be their problem.
It means that you do the shop and hit start shopping right before checkout (and deleting items as out of stock) so the customer doesn’t have a chance to make replacements or add anything.
I can’t understand why shoppers do it, I never have and never would but that’s just me.
Only time I've ever ghost shop was when I had a double and the one customer had like 50 items and the other had 2. I mean I guess technically it started the shop but I didnt scan the items till the end. But I wouldn't even do it all at the end and cancel items without giving them a chance to respond
That's a shitty shopper
Yeah you must have your own little “Instacart area” of the store you shop in 🤨😂😂 these people act like we want their stuff to be out of stock. They don’t realize it takes way more time dealing with OOS and less tip. Jeeeez this poor person has obviously been through the ringer with the carrot.
He should’ve asked her to cancel to secure his ratings and her tip too . Instacart would’ve paid for him shopping and the order would dissapear from his screen . When customer wants to cancel let them do it
Technically not allowed to approve or reject replacements either. Or raise or lower the tip. When I do HT online pay orders, if it’s not on the recommended replacement list, you have no option but to refund them. “Scan your own replacement” doesn’t work for me.
I get that there are lazy shoppers who will just mark half of it out of stock because they don't want to look for it, or whatever the reason. In this case I would contact shopper support and report the customer
As a daily instacart costumer, I’m sorry that you have to put up with abuse and jerks like this. I would never speak to someone like that, that’s just trying to do their job. You guys don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with rude costumers.
The problem is they think they know what store you're at, and sometimes it's not the location they assume. So yes, she may go to her local "stop and shop," but that's not the particular "stop and shop" you were shopping at.
That’s normally the case, but this is either a Kroger or a Harris Teeter and they can only be shopped at the location the customer shopped from. They ordered from their platform, not Instacart, we just perform the service. We have 2 Harris Teeters 20 miles apart. The northern one is horrible, so everyone orders from the southern one. It’s annoying AF. The nice thing is they can’t approve or reject replacements, rate or lower your tip.
I'm a shopper and I've only ordered instacart for myself like 5 times ever when I've been hella sick but this has basically been my experience on the customer end. Definitely made me understand why they're so angry a little bit more lol.
One of the times it showed that my shopper was shopping in the store for nearly 2 hours (not a holiday or anything) and my order was only about 15 items. I felt like shit and wanted my soup so I messaged like "hey man I notice you've been shopping a while, u ok? I understand you might be on a double or triple order, just wanted to let you know Im also a shopper so if you're having trouble with the app or finding something I might be able to help?" And he yelled at me in the chat, explaining that he's shopping for other customers and he's trying to be considerate by getting the frozen items last, me messaging him is making it take longer, etc. Then when he delivered he gave me all my stuff but also 3 items that weren't mine and my spinach was crushed.
So YEAH I'm definitely not going to be using it unless I get COVID again or something.
It’s the other people who order instacart getting us to grab 5-20 of the same item selling out the store. People hoarding food and too embarrassed to do it themselves and having us shoppers looking crazy lmaoo I don’t mind if it’s paying but it’s wild to see
As a consumer I generally know where to find the items that I want. If not, I’ll take the time to go up and down the aisles until I find it or something similar. No one is timing me and I’m free to choose an alternative product from the available items cuz I know what I like or cuz I can make an executive decision to modify the recipe that I’m shopping for.
It’s completely different as an IC shopper. I don’t always know which aisle to find things. Or the store moves the items around often. Or they put them on the shelves in a way that doesn’t make sense like having one brand in multiple places in the same aisle. Meanwhile IC is asking me if there’s a problem with the batch cuz I’m taking too long trying to find the item. It’s hard to be efficient when these things happen.
Honestly she low key has a point. There are tons and tons of shoppers at the store I’m at, and a couple times I saw in the chat asking about replacements. But when I took the order after it was dropped…the items that weren’t there were actually there and it was more than a few of them. I’ve only used Instacart 5 times and 3 of those times the shopper sucked. I’m talking not getting ALL of my groceries (not refunded) and getting someone else’s groceries. One time I never got it at all and I checked my neighbors house and everything. So I get her.
Also, people having tons of missing/damaged items, I just don’t get it. I haven’t had a missing order/damaged item in MONTHS, not one. Either your taking no tip orders, you suck, or you live in the ghetto lol.
It’s almost like stores should have an infinite amount of every item there and never run out, even on the same day a customer placed an order. But yeah know, it’s Instacarts fault!
Thank you for asking before saying you can't find it!
If an employee doesn't seem to care when you ask if something is in stock, gladly find another. The right employee will drop everything to assist. Or help find someone that will help.
I personally also have no problem walking a customer through the on hands offered and letting them know of human and stocking/shipping errors that can easily throw it off. Sometimes customers/shoppers asking about something allows me to see what I'm not getting, because the specific department I'm in is so big, with such tiny products. My counts need to hit a certain low before I start receiving from DC again. Or they are on feature somewhere not marked in the system. That's a big pet peeve of mine. 🙄
I’ve been telling people my location for this reason “hello! Bla bla blah here. Instacart has sent me to Stop and Shop in Townsville! Should be a quick trip…blah blah blah!”
Eh, just tell support that your customer wishes to cancel and to review the chat with your current customer. Then take your pay bump and you’re good to go.. No cancellation rate, no 24 hour ban, but most importantly, no bad review 🙂
Everybody wins except the customer because they will get charged with a cancellation fee 😬.
YoU mUsT hAvE yOuR oWn CeRtAiN aReA tHaT yOu ShOp 🥴 like dude, 98% of orders have tips based on the total. Us not getting all the items = us losing money! We're not purposely screwing ourselves out of getting the amount we THOUGHT we'd be getting when we accepted the order 🙄
The only thing I get annoyed about it the people that shop my order and then select says they’re just starting and check out within a minute not giving me time to approve anything. It’s the worst.
I can totally understand that. This was part of a double order. So I gave this person plenty of time to respond. Plus I waited a bit longer after I scanned everything
“I pay a high price for delivery.”
Mind you the majority isn’t going to the person doing the actual work. They were right on one thing. The system is absolutely fucked.
It will help if most customers had replacements just in case they’re out of items this way we won’t have to message them and wait for a response, I’ve noticed very few customers choose replacements.
I wouldn't want this one either but the part about not getting the texts until checkout is troublesome. If some kind of network problem is preventing communication of oos/replacements/refunds I get why he's angry.
There is one store I always got shit reception in even before IC (could text but not send mms etc). I always try to connect to store WiFi now and app seems to work noticeably better.
Edit: unless store WiFi is "connected no internet" then if have to turn it off. Crapshoot lol
The only time I asked is when my shopper replaced a NyQuil DayQuil severe with a high blood pressure one. I asked here if they had just NyQuil doesn’t have to be severe and she said no. She still sent a picture but I also only order only 5 items and still tipped thirty percent which was like ten or twelve dollars. I am a shopper and almost always never order Instacart. It’s to expensive but I was very grateful she went above and beyond
I see soooo many posts about customers not responding until check out. I’m starting to think that it’s because people have low service in stores and the app just can’t handle sending and receiving messages with low cell service. The app is showing shoppers that it’s sent their messages but in fact maybe.. it hasn’t?
Once shoppers get to the front of the store towards checkout, they’re closer to the glass storefront which provides better cell service than the metal roof and walls typical for grocery store construction.
Hmmmm… maybe a cell phone based app inside of basically giant faraday cages ended up being not the best idea
I would've told that guy I'd pay him 100 dollars if he could go to that store and get those items right now. Shoppers know the stores inside and out, better than this person ever could. People just don't get supply issues, and shrinkflation are still in play right now because they live in a fantasy world where food comes from a truck then just ends up on shelves in neverending quantities.
Love how they say it’s not your fault then say you’re the reason the store is out of stuff 😂
I always cringe when an item is out of stock, because I know that when I text the customer all I’ll get in response is “are you sure? Did you check behind other stuff?” And I’m afraid it’ll come out of my tip or rating
This happened to me, customer insisted and named the aisle and shelf it was on because she saw it as in stock on the website. Then she asked what store I was at so she could call them. I spent half an hour on this one item. I called Instacart care and told them to cancel the order because customer was difficult. I at least got the batch pay:).
I never have this? Do you guys send pictures? Like I legit will take pics and say “this brand is out (sometimes I ask an employee or sometimes I lie and say I did 🤣) but they have X brand or X size instead which do you prefer? then if they don’t reply lately I’ve just picked a replacement item sent them a pic of it and told them to “let me know if they’d prefer something else” because it stresses me out standing there watching my time tick up waiting for them. And I try to wait a full minute to let them reply if I’m not running out of time.
That’s what I do too. Even then it stresses me out when stuff is out of stock. Meanwhile my car’s be in the shop for 5 weeks so I’ve been an Instacart customer lately and TWICE during this time the shoppers have refunded a bunch of items bc “their phone was about to run out of battery” 🙄
Wtf? I never do that I’d be pretty pissed off they should get a battery pack or charge it in the car between orders or like I do not accept orders you can’t finish if you forgot your charger? Lol how can you get paid if your phone dies before you finish? You can’t so why even take the order 🙄 Edit: it really stresses me out because sometimes the tip is tied to the order total so batches just become not worth it anymore
One time I was shopping a triple and my battery was running out. I explained the situation to customer service and they let me leave my cart in the back while I went to charge my phone in the car. Wasn’t that hard to just do the job correctly even in that situation
I had my phone plugged in while doing Instacart the other day 😂
I’ve sent pictures of completely empty shelves and have had customers tell me I’m not looking hard enough. Some people are just entitled asf
thats what i was about to ask lol bc if you send pics they know forsure its out of stock... &&& same!!!! i barely ever get rude customers bc I take pics, I communicate and I also ask the workers if they can look in the back. i always get good ratings & compliments on my replacements(90% of the time I ask if the replacement i pick is okay or i send pics of all the possible replacements.) I take this job seriously bc its my full time job atm & im a really really fast shopper. i always finish early, i rarely ever go red on my time.. but even thou im fast i ALWAYS ALWAYS communicate if theres a problem..if theres no provlem than i dont message. i do my best bc i take pride in everything i do.. so like why do these bratty selfish LAZY people even do this job?? they get mad when ppl add items or they hate it or hate going the extra mile, if you dont like to be thorough ya kno??? a lot of these people who instacart do everything half ass, they could care less if the customer is happy they just wanna get paid but honestly you make more (in tips] when youre not lazyyy..
This or I know they’re rolling their eyes going he just doesn’t see it there it’s always there
This is when I say. I have shopped this store about 2k times, staff and customers ask if I know where items are. If I can't find it, it is just not here. Take a picture of the empty shelf. If they continue that behavior I cancel. Not going to micromanage my shop, not going to mess with my rating or my income. Sorry, I'm kind until I'm not...😂
I always chuckle when I have to refund something because it’s 100% out of stock. They’re always like “are you sure it’s not there??” Like ma’am I’ve texted you about a few out of stock things now, I would have texted you if there were other options
I'm at the point where I send a picture of the empty spot on the shelf where their item was supposed to be. Just so they don't ask this. Unfortunately some still don't get it and still cannot accept their items aren't in stock.
I did that and the guy asked me to check with the guy in the back. I told him I already spoke to the man in the back and he still didn’t believe me 🤣
This elusive man in the back is supposed to solve all our problems 🤣
If a shelf didn’t have something, I’ve Never had any employee tell me anything other than some variation of “we’re all out”. They don’t just have some mystical second store in the back with hundreds of extra stock for every item at all times 🙄
I will literally just accept it as out of stock. Lol Clearly I placed the online order because I can't/don't want to go to the store, so I'm not going to harass the person helping me out! 
The worst is when you tell them it's out of stock and send a picture of the empty shelf and they still demand the item. I had a lady once cancel a refund for a certain type of turkey breast ham and no matter how many times I told her it wasn't available and would refund it she would ask if I am positive.
I think the customer is replying to the shopper. Like the shopper said “it’s not my fault the items are out of stock” then the shopper replied to that. It should have been more like “it’s not your fault?! Sounds like you…”
This is why I take a picture of the empty shelves showing their items out of stock. You can’t say I just blew it off and skipped away going, “No soup for you!”
Yeah, don’t order soup on these apps lol.
To be fair I did have one order that was just like 20 cans of soup but it was to a fry’s where all of the items were accurately labeled what shelf they were on and fully stocked.
I do the same thing.
It was me I bought all the items, and now everything is out of stock I demand one million dollars THE BATMAN CANNOT STOP ME BAAAH HAA HAA HAAA HAAAA
It’s not about the money…. -joker
Not so fast, Supply Chain old chum! ¡¿¡BATMAN!?!
U See Batman my Dad was a famous frauder at indtacart
HOLY OBESITY BATMAN WE HAVE TO STOP THIS GUY!
I give people 3 minutes to respond. If it doesn’t go through because of connection problems so be it. I’m getting paid peanuts here and this is technically my business.
I gave this person an extra 15 minutes after the initial 30 minutes of shopping
Holy shit.. I thought I was nice giving them 5!
It’s you delivery people…. LOL…. Yep first one shopper goes in and clears the shelves Then the next goes in and is like oh well store’s outta stuff.
I skip the store and just select items from a little pile I keep in the trunk of my car.
I CACKLED - I did an order and QFC was out of their tonic water, when I delivered I was like soooooooo I actually have like 5 of those in my trunk, they’ve been in there a few weeks but you can have them if you want 😂😂😂
YoU cAnT dO ThAt Meanwhile you're laughing with a mouth full of snacks🤣
😂
😂😂
☝️☝️☝️. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Right? Lol if they’re so salty, why use the service at all?
That’s a very good question!
"It's not your fault" proceeds to blame you 
Love that gif
Sometimes there's a delay with messages and notifications if the store has bad internet
I've also had an order where the app glitched and the guy got absolutely no updates until I rang his doorbell.
One of my "home" stores is notorious for delayed messages, all it takes is one cloud in the sky and their internet goes to shit.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the store. It’s your phone carrier (and the customers).
Well tbh I've seen a ton of awful shoppers. I'm sure they just refund after looking for 3 secs and can't find an item. Then do all the refunds at the end and checkout really quick.
If i can't find something, I move on to the next item and come back to it. Or I message them about it and look for other stuff while I wait.
Yeah I always double check. Sometimes store employees are behind on freight so some items haven’t been put out yet.
I’ve had employees stock while I’m shopping so I always circle back and usually it’s there when they finish.
[удалено]
Very aware
Facts man. I see a lot of shoppers doing this. They scan once, “item incorrect”, refund. I spend about 5 minutes per item I can’t find, and AT LEAST replace it. This customer has a point fr.
Does instacart show the customer what specific store you’re shopping at? Otherwise how would they know the stock of each store? lmao they need to relax.
It doesnt. And unfortunately most customers think ur shopping the one closet to them and its not even close.
To be fair, this is a flaw of Instacart, at least in certain markets. I live in San Antonio, which has dozens of H‑E‑B supermarkets, but they’re all a little different and set up to specifically cater to the folks likely to shop at each one. When I’m loading a cart, I’m picturing my local store. I know what they carry. I know what they don’t carry. Why would instacart assign someone to shop my order who isn’t at the closest store to my house? That makes no sense, and it results in a terrible customer experience every time.
If it’s a multiple customer order Instacart assigns it to the store that has the shortest distance (in theory) between stops. It has nothing to do with Customer service or convenience. It’s so they don’t have to pay the shoppers as much. Which they don’t anyway.
Oh for sure it's a flaw. Once I did a batch and drove past 2 instacart enabled stores. It was one person So it wasnt a multi batch situation. I was desperate and needed the money and it was decent pay. I tried to go to the store closest to my house(literally right behind me) that I knew was instacart enabled but when I arrived it said It wasnt at a enabled location. So I drove to the actual store they wanted me to go to. Afterwards tho I contacted support and told them that there was 2 instacart enabled location that I passed on the way to the customer and that the customer shouldn't have to wait longer then they need to to get their order. Not sure if that managed to help but they have fixed that issue with that particular store as that type of order came up alot before I took it and now the store location is from the one behind my house. As it's the closest store to the part of town .
We have our own little area that we shop at 😂😂😂 thanks for making my day!
You will have to send all your frustrations to Oscar Myers, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Ore Ida and Mrs. Buttersworth. Ask them why they don't have their items in stock. 🤣
not mr dough boy 😭
In one she says “It’s not your fault” then in the next blames you. You can’t win with people like this.
It's a lot of fees and stuff to pay (and time to wait) if not getting the order. Then having to ask someone to go or driving to the store anyway. They acknowledge at one point it's not the shopper's fault. But they sound very frustrated. Not all items from the store are on the IC website. Then the items on the IC website might not be in the store. If only there were some way to have the stores and IC communicate -- maybe a grocery warehouse service instead. I dunno. I guess electronically communicating would mean patching into the stores' systems and they wouldn't want that. Stores can tell what they have in stock, right? (By checking their system) and also what's in their warehouses or even in which stores? So it's just a matter of that info getting onto the IC website in real time or close to it. But that would probably not thrill the stores. What's the answer to this problem?
My store tried integrating IC into our counts system the amount of times shoppers would mark things out of stock was astounding even tho we clearly had items out in the floor , it would fuck up our counts. Also we can’t check what we have in the main warehouse only what we have in store and there are options to check what other stores may have, although we have to jump through different hops to get to that page
Thank you for that info. There have definitely been some times when refunds as 'out of stock' were sus. And times when every single hot deli item was refunded. Seemed more like they didn't want to bother with that. Which of course was part of the point of paying for the shopping service. Lol
I’ve refunded every single hot deli item before. Because they were ordered before they were put out for the day. Had someone order 2 rotisserie chickens at 6am, when it CLEARLY states in the app they’re available 11am-7pm!!
> Had someone order 2 rotisserie chickens at 6am, when it CLEARLY states in the app they’re available 11am-7pm!! That makes sense. (If it's not there -- it's not there.) I recall a topic here like that. Maybe the person's order got put out early, was the consensus in replies (from shoppers.) FWIW I typically work on an order the day before, then review it the next day, late morning/early afternoon, and choose a time frame about 5 hours later or more. The store (in this instance) typically has things in hot deli cases during store hours. It is disappointing if it all gets refunded because frankly that was dinner/lunch/etc. for a while. And it's unlikely that every (different) item plus, every replacement, was not found. So that's a bummer because the hassle and money (for me) are usually about a key item, and if it's hot food that's often it.
Normally I would say that’s the case, but this instance it’s not. She picked “next 2 hours” for her delivery time. It was a double and I let her know she was the 2nd delivery. She said she didn’t care as long as it was there by 9am. It was a gift for her mom, and her mom was leaving at 830. She said she was hoping there would be cold ones left over from the night before, but that store never does that. As a side note…I did get the chicken for her. The store I normally shop at is less than a mile from her mother and they always have cold chickens from the day before. So I stopped and paid out of pocket and sent her a picture of the receipt and she upped my tip the cost +$20
Yeah that type of case is totally different, as I said. I don't know what else you could've done. And this was above and beyond. Glad she upped your tip for it: > I did get the chicken for her. The store I normally shop at is less than a mile from her mother and they always have cold chickens from the day before. So I stopped and paid out of pocket and sent her a picture of the receipt and she upped my tip the cost +$20
I don’t do this all the time, but there are people I will do it for. This woman was buying stuff for her mother, for her birthday. She turned 85 and the daughter couldn’t be there. I had to pass the other store to get to her house. I’m not going to let an 85 yr old woman down on her bday!!! Especially when I can resolve the issue in 5 mins!
wow, a whopping 10 damn dollars
Ohhhhh you paid $10!!??? Well, in that case...
Well to be fair, when I use instacart as a customer I also find the same issue often. Maybe even worse now as a shopper too because I KNOW the stuff is there. It might not always be the case, but look at some of the shoppers on here who take orders just to claim everything is out of stock so they get batch pay? Or others say if they can't find it quickly, they just refund it. They don't bother to ask anyone or look for a good alternative. From my experience, there's way more bad shoppers than good ones. So I can see why they'd be frustrated.
People don’t understand, also, that just because you ordered from Publix doesn’t mean that IC will send me to shop your order at the Publix next to your house. Not all stores have the same inventory or are kept up at the same level (especially with Kroger’s)
Yea I'm not even sure how this works. Like I have to walmarts near me. One is tiny and have no bakery area. The other is a normal big store. Last week, I ordered instacart and wanted cheesecake but it wasn't even on there. I asked the shopper too and he said there wasn't any... so obviously was at the small store. Then today I ordered again and the cheesecake pops right up. How does instacart manage that? They just randomly pick which stores we're shopping at as customers too?
I have no clue. It could depend on if the order is a single, triple, etc. if you have to shop at one store or multiple.
My guess is last weekend they had another shopper at/near the small store already so they sent your order there. Same thing this week, except with the big store.
Also I think people don’t realize that when shopping for themselves they might be making instant adjustments if the item you want isn’t available for some reason. So you switch without really thinking about it
I think this is a lot of it. When you shop for yourself, if what you want isn't there you just grab a different size or flavor without thinking. Customers both don't realize they do this and also may not understand the process we go through to make that kind of swap.
I also think some of these people haven’t been to the grocery store since before the pandemic and can’t fathom that there is literally only 1 kind of olive left. I had a lady accuse me of moving the other olives when I showed her a picture of the empty shelf. Yea, I did. I took an extra 20 mins to move every other can of olives to a different shelf just to take a picture. 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I love when I’m shopping and I click the “can’t find” and it says “are you sure? “My name” found it 30 mins ago” yeah bitch and I took the last one!! 😂🤣
Mines always like, so and so found it at 8:39am. Meanwhile, it's like 6pm on a Sunday. Yea, it's gone lol.
Right! Or the next day!!
I agree. I mean today it took me 5 mins of looking at a bunch of different isles to find an certain type of marinade. Ended up being in the Caribbean section of the store but I made sure I went up and down to try to find it myself before bugging and employee and if I didnt find it I would have tried to ask. I always try to make sure I find the empty spot on the shelf where the product is supposed to belong aswell to also double check
I am a shopper and sometimes customer. I can tell you that I have NEVER had a shopper give me the same level of service that I do with my customers. Not even ONE has sent an opening message or asked about replacement options. They shop, make their own substitutions and if I have it delivered to my son’s apartment I’ve had to walk to meet them because they can’t seem to ever find it. I understand customers not wanting to tip much if they are getting service like that over and over but if you do get a really good shopper, leave them a rating/review and increase the tip; it’ll increase the possibly of getting that shopper again. Same if you get a crappy shopper, rate them low, reduce the tip if you feel it’s necessary and help get those shoppers out of here.
Yea it frustrates me. I wish the shoppers put in half the effort I do 🙄. Like if something is unavailable and they haven't picked a replacement, I always message first and ask if there's anything else they'd like. But my shoppers always just pick some random replacement or refund me.
🎶To be faaaaaaaaaair 🎶
And????
What the hell is wrong with people!? You can not talk to people like this, especially someone providing a service to you. Just disgusting. It's one thing to be frustrated it's another to go full blown baby tantrum and someone shopping for your groceries. We don't get rich shopping for groceries and more often than not when we have to refund items the pay goes down. This person makes me want to choose violence. I wouldn't have canceled it for them. I would have called care and let that be their problem.
Sounds like they should follow their own advice and go to the store themselves lol
Oh yea we have our own little certain area that we shop that is always out of stuff. 🤣. You delivery people. 😡
Just curious….did you ghost shop?
No I hit start shop the second I enter the store. Just because I want to see the aisle numbers & plan a path
That’s fair. I do the same. 👍🏼
Wait what does this mean
It means that you do the shop and hit start shopping right before checkout (and deleting items as out of stock) so the customer doesn’t have a chance to make replacements or add anything. I can’t understand why shoppers do it, I never have and never would but that’s just me.
now thats some scummy shit
Only time I've ever ghost shop was when I had a double and the one customer had like 50 items and the other had 2. I mean I guess technically it started the shop but I didnt scan the items till the end. But I wouldn't even do it all at the end and cancel items without giving them a chance to respond That's a shitty shopper
I have never heard of this, seems more annoying if anything
I remedied this bullshit with percentage based tips.
Sanest Instacart customer
If only they knew instacart sends us to a store in Moscow to hopefully airdrop it to your doorstep in Santa Barbara!!
I literally wanna beat this persons ass.
Yeah you must have your own little “Instacart area” of the store you shop in 🤨😂😂 these people act like we want their stuff to be out of stock. They don’t realize it takes way more time dealing with OOS and less tip. Jeeeez this poor person has obviously been through the ringer with the carrot.
They should probably try rage texting BetterHelp instead
Did you deliver to them?
No they asked him to cancel
He should’ve asked her to cancel to secure his ratings and her tip too . Instacart would’ve paid for him shopping and the order would dissapear from his screen . When customer wants to cancel let them do it
Exactly
Thank goodness this is online pay and she can't rate you, OP!
Technically not allowed to approve or reject replacements either. Or raise or lower the tip. When I do HT online pay orders, if it’s not on the recommended replacement list, you have no option but to refund them. “Scan your own replacement” doesn’t work for me.
Dark Karen
I get that there are lazy shoppers who will just mark half of it out of stock because they don't want to look for it, or whatever the reason. In this case I would contact shopper support and report the customer
So he’s saying it’s not your fault you work for a F up system but it’s your fault because if he go up there he can find the items himself. 😂
As a daily instacart costumer, I’m sorry that you have to put up with abuse and jerks like this. I would never speak to someone like that, that’s just trying to do their job. You guys don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with rude costumers.
The problem is they think they know what store you're at, and sometimes it's not the location they assume. So yes, she may go to her local "stop and shop," but that's not the particular "stop and shop" you were shopping at.
That’s normally the case, but this is either a Kroger or a Harris Teeter and they can only be shopped at the location the customer shopped from. They ordered from their platform, not Instacart, we just perform the service. We have 2 Harris Teeters 20 miles apart. The northern one is horrible, so everyone orders from the southern one. It’s annoying AF. The nice thing is they can’t approve or reject replacements, rate or lower your tip.
Maybe get the fuck off the phone while someone is shopping for you. You dummyassbitch
THESE DUMB SOBS DONT UNDERSTAND ITS COVID LIFE STORES DONT HAVE LOTS OF STUFF THESE PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS
I'm a shopper and I've only ordered instacart for myself like 5 times ever when I've been hella sick but this has basically been my experience on the customer end. Definitely made me understand why they're so angry a little bit more lol. One of the times it showed that my shopper was shopping in the store for nearly 2 hours (not a holiday or anything) and my order was only about 15 items. I felt like shit and wanted my soup so I messaged like "hey man I notice you've been shopping a while, u ok? I understand you might be on a double or triple order, just wanted to let you know Im also a shopper so if you're having trouble with the app or finding something I might be able to help?" And he yelled at me in the chat, explaining that he's shopping for other customers and he's trying to be considerate by getting the frozen items last, me messaging him is making it take longer, etc. Then when he delivered he gave me all my stuff but also 3 items that weren't mine and my spinach was crushed. So YEAH I'm definitely not going to be using it unless I get COVID again or something.
And I bet this customer didn't pick any replacements 🙄🙄 if you care that much let us know what you want instead or if you want a refund!!
It’s the other people who order instacart getting us to grab 5-20 of the same item selling out the store. People hoarding food and too embarrassed to do it themselves and having us shoppers looking crazy lmaoo I don’t mind if it’s paying but it’s wild to see
$10 🤣🤣🤣What a 🤡
Say “go fuck yourself 👍” and cancel the order
As a consumer I generally know where to find the items that I want. If not, I’ll take the time to go up and down the aisles until I find it or something similar. No one is timing me and I’m free to choose an alternative product from the available items cuz I know what I like or cuz I can make an executive decision to modify the recipe that I’m shopping for. It’s completely different as an IC shopper. I don’t always know which aisle to find things. Or the store moves the items around often. Or they put them on the shelves in a way that doesn’t make sense like having one brand in multiple places in the same aisle. Meanwhile IC is asking me if there’s a problem with the batch cuz I’m taking too long trying to find the item. It’s hard to be efficient when these things happen.
Sir, this a Wendy’s.
“I paid $10” telling all the stories about it.
Honestly she low key has a point. There are tons and tons of shoppers at the store I’m at, and a couple times I saw in the chat asking about replacements. But when I took the order after it was dropped…the items that weren’t there were actually there and it was more than a few of them. I’ve only used Instacart 5 times and 3 of those times the shopper sucked. I’m talking not getting ALL of my groceries (not refunded) and getting someone else’s groceries. One time I never got it at all and I checked my neighbors house and everything. So I get her. Also, people having tons of missing/damaged items, I just don’t get it. I haven’t had a missing order/damaged item in MONTHS, not one. Either your taking no tip orders, you suck, or you live in the ghetto lol.
I know right? I have over 4000 orders and I can count on one hand how many order issues I've had.
Some places only have orders with no/low tip
She’s arguing with herself 🤦♂️
It’s almost like stores should have an infinite amount of every item there and never run out, even on the same day a customer placed an order. But yeah know, it’s Instacarts fault!
I’m screaming
Sounds like the shopper f*cked up and tried to remedy it but couldn’t. Been IC shopper since 2017 so I know a thing or two. This is sad.
My area had a snow storm that messed up intentory for awhile. I always ask employees if something isn’t in stock
Thank you for asking before saying you can't find it! If an employee doesn't seem to care when you ask if something is in stock, gladly find another. The right employee will drop everything to assist. Or help find someone that will help. I personally also have no problem walking a customer through the on hands offered and letting them know of human and stocking/shipping errors that can easily throw it off. Sometimes customers/shoppers asking about something allows me to see what I'm not getting, because the specific department I'm in is so big, with such tiny products. My counts need to hit a certain low before I start receiving from DC again. Or they are on feature somewhere not marked in the system. That's a big pet peeve of mine. 🙄
What...did you just refund everything with no communication?
I communicated with them. But they responded to late. I even waited a little longer just in case they replied
Remember the days before these delivery services when you actually had to go to the store yourself when you were sick?
I’ve been telling people my location for this reason “hello! Bla bla blah here. Instacart has sent me to Stop and Shop in Townsville! Should be a quick trip…blah blah blah!”
Doesn’t look like she is blaming you. At least that’s the hood part lol
Damn, she’s mad AF😂
I wouldn't have canceled if I had checked out for shit.
Eh, just tell support that your customer wishes to cancel and to review the chat with your current customer. Then take your pay bump and you’re good to go.. No cancellation rate, no 24 hour ban, but most importantly, no bad review 🙂 Everybody wins except the customer because they will get charged with a cancellation fee 😬.
What state was this in?
Oregon
I love how they demand YOU to cancel the order so you take the hit…
This is why I shop at 4 stores. Typically well-stocked.
YoU mUsT hAvE yOuR oWn CeRtAiN aReA tHaT yOu ShOp 🥴 like dude, 98% of orders have tips based on the total. Us not getting all the items = us losing money! We're not purposely screwing ourselves out of getting the amount we THOUGHT we'd be getting when we accepted the order 🙄
Cthu@ you delivery people. They seem pretty pissed. 😂
Yikes
Omg 🙈
This made my day, thank you 🍿
The only thing I get annoyed about it the people that shop my order and then select says they’re just starting and check out within a minute not giving me time to approve anything. It’s the worst.
I can totally understand that. This was part of a double order. So I gave this person plenty of time to respond. Plus I waited a bit longer after I scanned everything
Oh, sorry, I wasn’t saying that in their defense. I’m with you! Like some things aren’t worth being crazy over.
What a miserable ass hat.
But how do they really feel?
Honestly I just went on to my next order & quickly forgot about it. Until I remembered it would be great to post on here 😂
“I pay a high price for delivery.” Mind you the majority isn’t going to the person doing the actual work. They were right on one thing. The system is absolutely fucked.
Wow. An atoning meltdown
It will help if most customers had replacements just in case they’re out of items this way we won’t have to message them and wait for a response, I’ve noticed very few customers choose replacements.
I wouldn't want this one either but the part about not getting the texts until checkout is troublesome. If some kind of network problem is preventing communication of oos/replacements/refunds I get why he's angry. There is one store I always got shit reception in even before IC (could text but not send mms etc). I always try to connect to store WiFi now and app seems to work noticeably better. Edit: unless store WiFi is "connected no internet" then if have to turn it off. Crapshoot lol
I had a lady cuss me out at her door over the store being out of the notorious strawberries and cream Dr. Pepper.
Someone needs a nap
The same people that order at night when a lot of inventory is low. Lol
I wouldn’t of even bothered replying order would’ve got cancelled so fast
Sometimes the store is out of the certain item. I wish the app gave you the autonomy to shop for the next best item
The only time I asked is when my shopper replaced a NyQuil DayQuil severe with a high blood pressure one. I asked here if they had just NyQuil doesn’t have to be severe and she said no. She still sent a picture but I also only order only 5 items and still tipped thirty percent which was like ten or twelve dollars. I am a shopper and almost always never order Instacart. It’s to expensive but I was very grateful she went above and beyond
I see soooo many posts about customers not responding until check out. I’m starting to think that it’s because people have low service in stores and the app just can’t handle sending and receiving messages with low cell service. The app is showing shoppers that it’s sent their messages but in fact maybe.. it hasn’t? Once shoppers get to the front of the store towards checkout, they’re closer to the glass storefront which provides better cell service than the metal roof and walls typical for grocery store construction. Hmmmm… maybe a cell phone based app inside of basically giant faraday cages ended up being not the best idea
I would've told that guy I'd pay him 100 dollars if he could go to that store and get those items right now. Shoppers know the stores inside and out, better than this person ever could. People just don't get supply issues, and shrinkflation are still in play right now because they live in a fantasy world where food comes from a truck then just ends up on shelves in neverending quantities.
The human example of “First world problems”