I remember back in the day when a smart phone was just used to watch videos, send text messages, surf the web and heaven forbid call people. Fortunately technology is always evolving and now your smart phone has evolved from a way to ignore people into a money maker. And that's what my Instacart Job Review is about.
If you love to grocery shop and have a smart phone, you may be very excited about the opportunity to “get paid to grocery shop for others“.
What Is Instacart?
According to their website; “Instacart is a grocery delivery service that delivers in as little as an hour! We connect you with Personal Shoppers in your area who pick up and deliver your groceries from your favorite local stores. ” This company is pretty new and was started around 2013 in San Francisco. It currently has over 4000 shoppers/independent contractors. At the time of this review they only serve 15 major cities.
How To Make Money with Instacart.com?
As you read above the whole premise of their business is to deliver groceries within an hour by local people. So if you happen to live in one of the cities they serve you can sign up to be a personal shopper in your area. But you have to jump through some hoops first.
After you sign up, Instacart requires you to have a background check, interview, and local training before you begin to receive shopping jobs. The jobs come through over your smart phone via their Instacart app that contains a digital shopping list that is conveniently categorized with produce, deli, meats, dairy, etc.
You have the option to either accept or decline each job that you receive. Currently some of the stores where you will shop are; Shaws, Kroger, Food Emporium, Whole Foods, and Costco.
If you accept a job, the app provides a photo of each item, tells you the approximate size and quantity of items to shop for. A GPS is provided through the Instacart app that tracks when the customer will receive their items and also, where you are in-route.
After delivery of items to customers, you receive your pay.
How Do You Get Paid With Instacart?
According to the website, you are paid $20 per hour via Paypal. It typically takes about a week after items delivered. Sometimes you get paid in tips too.
How Do You Join? Or, How Do You Sign Up?
It's free to join. However you need an updated iPhone, a car, a background check and an interview.
Complaints
I'm the first one to wish there were no complaints with various work from home opportunities. However, we don't live in a perfect world. There are complaints in the best of opportunities even. As always, I have to list them to give YOU the best information I can before you make an informed decision.
It's Not Work At Home
Most people visiting this blog are looking for work they can strictly do from home. Now, if this opportunity were shopping online, then it would be perfect. But there is driving involved going to certain grocery stores and then for deliveries to customers. They have other positions as well but none of them are really full work at home positions.
Limited Location
Unfortunately at the time of this review the program is only available in some major cities: See cities here. If you don't live in one of these cities then you're out of luck. Hopefully this grows.
Not Guaranteed Work
Unfortunately, there are slow times with this job opportunity, and you are not paid for sitting around waiting for shopping jobs to come through your smart phone app. At times, there may not be enough work for all the shoppers on board. Also, if you arrive late to a customer's home, or you didn't purchase the right brand of butter you can get bad ratings from those customers. So, that goes on your record and then your work can be limited. Consequently, steady income isn't guaranteed.
Limited Referral Program
Apparently you are limited to refer 5 people in your network. Not only that, the cash you earn from those referrals can only be spent at Instacart. What's up with that? I'd rather use the cash as I please. But it's a smart from the perspective of InstaCart.
Pay For Your Own Gas and Car Maintenance (For Driver Only Positions)
This one sucks! Especially if you have a lot of deliveries and travel long distances to certain stores or homes. If you have a long shift, guess what…you burn a lot of gas. Not to mention all the wear and tear on your vehicle. So you really have to factor this in to see if this opportunity is worth it or not for you.
You Better Have Muscles Like Popeye!
Unlike the benefits of working online, There is hard physical labor involved with this opportunity. One of the requirements is that you're able to lift (30 plus pounds) and doing a lot of walking. Depending on your physical strength, health and stamina this may to be challenging. Or if you're just lazy like me it's just not appealing.
Peek A Boo Scheduling
Instacart claims the schedules are flexible for shoppers. But my research team has found a few people that have complained about job orders coming through on their Instacart app right before they were off shift, or even before their shift began. So, what happened to flexibility and “work when you want?”
So Is Instacart a Scam or Legit?
It doesn't appear to be a scam from what I can see. But I personally wouldn't mess with this opportunity. The whole reason I'm in this industry is because I want to be able to make money from the comfort of my home or anywhere. So the nature of this opportunity doesn't fit this. So that's probably the biggest turn off for me.
The other issue is that the work is limited to certain cities and it's not consistent. So if you live in the Boondocks or looking for this to replace your income, then this won't work for you. Now if you are looking for something that can be done anywhere and that can become a full source of income, then you should probably check out my #1 Free Work At Home Recommendation. It takes some work and patience but fortunately it can be done online and at your own schedule.
But why stop there. The reason I'm successful making money online is because I follow a multiple streams income approach. It basically means I don't put all my eggs in one basket, I have money coming in from various resources. So with that said I can teach you how to make money online various ways with my online courses. So check them out as well here!
Well enough of my yammering. Now it's time for you to chime in. Let me know what you think of this opportunity by posting your comment down below. It's always great to hear your two cents.
Speak to you soon my friends.
Eddy with a (y)
I worked for Instacart for a bit over this past summer. The training was really nonexistent. The pay wasn’t too bad at all if it was busy. I was lucky enough to have a $10/hr guarantee when no orders were in. But that was taken away when I made more money than Instacart did 🙁 Also, if you are in a car wreck while you’re in transit or on company time, your insurance will drop you since most normal folks don’t carry commercial insurance. All in all, it was fun but you did burn your own gas and paid your own maintenance for your car.
Hey Jay,
Thanks for sharing your honest experience with this company. It definitely gives folks something to think about.