For Instacart Shoppers, the Job Is Getting Harder, Slower

The job is changing as growth slows at Instacart. Hundreds of thousands of workers joined the grocery-delivery company during the pandemic, drawn to flexible hours, ample work and good pay. Some shoppers say they are looking for different gigs, posing a challenge for Instacart, which relies on them to deliver groceries.

Lisa Kochersperger, who has shopped for Instacart since 2017, said her waits are getting longer and fewer orders are coming into the app that she and other Instacart shoppers use to fulfill customers’ shopping lists. Those orders that do appear have become harder to fill since products are often out of stock, she said, and customers often don’t respond quickly on possible substitutions.

“I used to see big batches. I never see that now,” Ms. Kochersperger said, referring to the size of customers’ incoming Instacart orders. In recent months, she said, she has been making more money delivering orders for

Amazon.com Inc.

Instacart said it is committed to supporting shoppers and is continuing to update its platform. The privately held company said it has made substantial improvements to its shopping and payment systems in recent months and will add more features over the next few months, using feedback from shoppers via surveys and focus groups.

Instacart, the biggest grocery-delivery company by sales, helped people like Ms. Kochersperger navigate the pandemic when consumers avoided making trips to supermarkets. Shoppers, in turn, helped Instacart achieve tremendous growth, its sales rocketing 330% from 2019 to 2020, according to research firm 1010data Services LLC, and pushing the company’s valuation to roughly $39 billion.

Instacart’s sales growth slowed to 15% in 2021, according to 1010data, while rivals like

DoorDash Inc.

have gained market share, according to research firm YipitData. Some supermarket companies are trying to coax more consumers back into their stores, where retailers don’t have to pay fees to delivery app companies. Instacart cut its valuation to $24 billion in March.

Instacart shoppers are independent contractors who sign up to fulfill online orders when they can, rather than work a set number of hours. Since the start of the pandemic, Instacart has tripled its number of shoppers to about 600,000—the company’s highest ever—to meet escalating demand, paying referral bonuses as high as $1,000 in some areas of the U.S.

Instacart said order volume is growing, though sizes are lower partly because people are going out more. In recent months, it introduced a 40-cent gas surcharge to each order, and upgraded its pay system to allow shoppers to cash out tips in two hours, versus 24 hours before. Instacart recently said it will cover up to $10 if a customer removes an initially offered tip without reporting issues, a practice known as tip baiting. Instacart is also rolling out a new feature that gives workers the option to take multiple orders at once, and add another batch while shopping. It began offering phone support to help address issues for shoppers.

Those efforts aim to hang on to shoppers like Tony Hoang, who quit his e-commerce job in the summer of 2020 and began shopping for Instacart. He said he initially earned $30 to $40 an hour and worked about 20 hours a week, bumping that up to 30 to 40 hours a week after he was vaccinated against Covid-19. Mr. Hoang and other shoppers get paid per batch by Instacart and a tip by customers, typically a percentage of the total order. Shoppers keep 100% of the tip.

Last year, Mr. Hoang said he began noticing fewer available orders on Instacart and that the size of each batch was shrinking. He said his tips and payments from Instacart declined, too. When his income took a hit, Mr. Hoang said he started filling orders for DoorDash as well as Instacart.

“Now, my majority is DoorDash,” Mr. Hoang said, adding that he finds DoorDash orders more consistent than Instacart. Today, he said, he makes about $25 an hour from Instacart, representing about one-third of his income. Mr. Hoang said he plans to keep shopping for Instacart so he isn’t reliant on a single gig job and can choose what pays more between the two companies.

A DoorDash spokeswoman said that having restaurants, supermarkets and other stores on the company’s platform gives workers more avenues to earn money.

Workers who can quickly fill orders help delivery companies such as Instacart make money and retain more customers, said Noor Abdel-Samed, a managing director at L.E.K. Consulting LLC who previously led e-commerce at BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc. Orders that take a long time to fill or have many substitute items can cost delivery companies customers, he said.

To retain shoppers, Instacart offers cash promotions based on demand, region and when they last filled an order for Instacart. It also reaches out to workers who signed up but never completed a batch. The company late last year introduced safety features including alerts and emergency assistance.

Abigail Nordstrom said she started shopping for Instacart in December to bring in extra income as she finishes up school in Wisconsin. She said she takes orders mostly in the evening and weekends, working about 12 to 14 hours a week, and skips orders with no or low tip.

“There are not a lot of jobs where you can, right off the gate, make $20 to $30 on your own time,” she said.

Write to Jaewon Kang at [email protected]