Instacart makes shopping a lot easier for customers, it is a delivery service for purchases made online. Some customers have noticed that sometimes Instacart orders cost more than an item would if it was bought directly from the store. Many customers question why Instacart does this and how often.
Instacart does not always charge customers more than a retail store would. Instacart has several stores that it has partnered with. When shopping from these partners the price of products will be the same as in-store. However, there are other stores that Instacart delivers for as well that aren’t partners. When customers shop from these stores they will pay more for items bought because for all non-partner stores, Instacart charges a higher markup.
That being said it’s important to understand which stores have their prices increased on Instacart and which ones do not. Regular users of Instacart may notice that some online shopping trips are more expensive than others. In some cases, Instacart prices are higher.
Why Instacart charges more?
There’s consistency regarding the prices in Instacart, this has led many to be curious about the price increases that appear on Instacart. The markup that increases the price of products bought from Instacart is only applied to some stores. So higher prices depend on where you do your shopping. The retailers set the prices that are seen when shopping through Instacart. So not all markups are to be blamed on Instacart.
It has stores that it has partnered with, normally the products from those stores are priced the same on Instacart as what would be displayed in the physical store. For those stores that aren’t partners of Instacart, some sort of markup is added to the price.
How much does Instacart charge?
The co-founder of the service released a statement saying that Instacart charges 15% more on stores with markups. This doesn’t really affect the small buyers, those who buy in bulk are usually the worst hit. An example is that a grocery order that would normally be $50 in a store costs $57.50 when bought through Instacart. That isn’t really intense until we reach a point where a purchase that would normally cost you let’s say $200 ends up costing you a total of $230+.
A shopper once ran an experiment to test exactly how much more Instacart charges. They came to the conclusion that some stores on Instacart don’t have a 15% mark-up, instead, the mark-up is as high as 23% for multiple stores. The difficulty lies in that you normally don’t know until after you have paid for your purchase. It’s important to note that even with the high markup, customers still save because some stores charge more than $100 in membership fees yearly. By using Instacart instead, customers no longer need to pay those fees.
Which stores don’t have a markup?
SafewayPetcoKrogerPubix
Stores where prices are marked up?
CostcoAldi
Instacart pick-up fee-
Places like Costco and Aldi have markups but there are markups that normally come from the stores themselves and not Instacart. In addition to delivering your order to your door, the delivery services also allow you to collect your order curbside at stores that are eligible to offer this service.
Premium members pay no additional fees, while non-members are required to pay an average of $4.99. The pick-up fee is subject to change depending on the store. Be sure to check the details before going to collect your order. For those who want to become Instacart members, the membership fee is $99 this fee is charged annually. Depending on how regularly you buy groceries the member’s fee may end up paying for itself.
Instacart pickup-
Instead of placing an order and having it delivered to your door, you can choose to pick it up in person curbside. To do that all you have to do is set a pickup time from the grocery store that you choose after having placed your order online on the Instacart site. Instacart will notify you when your order is ready for pick up.
Depending on the grocery store that you choose to shop from through Instacart the prices may appear higher. However, it’s Instacart’s aim to make your grocery shopping experience easier and more affordable. One of the reasons they markup prices of Mon partners is to guide you to purchase from their partners.
