Introducing a More Flexible On-Demand Experience

Each time we survey shoppers, we hear again and again that the flexibility of Instacart is what draws you to the service. Whether it’s shopping a quick batch after dropping the kids off at school, in the evening after your full-time job wraps up for the day, or during fall break, shoppers enjoy and want to select batches whenever is most convenient for you.

To make the shopping experience even more flexible, we introduced On-Demand, a new way to shop that allows shoppers to choose which batch you want to shop, whenever works best for your schedule. As we’ve expanded On-Demand, we’ve been engaging with the shopper community, closely listening to your feedback and developing new features that help improve the shopping experience.

Now, we’re testing several new features that will help make On-Demand shopping even better for both shoppers and customers alike. Each update will give shoppers more information and flexibility over the batches you choose to shop, making it easier than ever to shop with Instacart.

Detailed List View

Many shoppers have different preferences about what types of batches you most want to shop. Some shoppers may prefer to shop at specific retailers, while others care more about the total item count in a batch, or how far the drive is between the grocery store and the customer. To help make the best decision for you, we’ve added more information to the batch list view, so you can quickly get the details you need to choose your preferred batch.

Priority Access

Shoppers care deeply about delivering great customer service, and when a shopper makes a customer’s day with a high-quality order, everyone benefits. We’ve introduced more resources, such as a newly redesigned “How Am I Doing?” page and new optional lessons on quality, to help shoppers understand your rating and get better with every order. To reward those shoppers who customers have determined offer a great experience, the highest rated shoppers in each region will be offered priority access, with the opportunity to view and accept batches first. If you wish to improve, you can visit your “How Am I Doing?” page to view your current rating, get customer feedback, and learn from optional new lessons.

Order Feedback

As we announced last week, we’re continuing to invest in better, more efficient ways for shoppers to leave feedback about the orders you shop and deliver. Learning from shopper feedback is a crucial way that we can improve the Instacart experience, which is why we are introducing a new way for you to report issues or incidents that may occur while shopping or delivering an order, as well as respond to customer feedback on order issues such as missing or damaged items.

A More Flexible On-Demand Experience

Each new feature that we are testing was developed based on specific feedback from shoppers using On-Demand over the past several months. These features will be rolling out in various pilot regions over the coming months, as we continue to learn from shoppers to make the experience better tomorrow than it is today.

Along with these changes, all batches in five markets — Boston, Boulder, Denver, Las Vegas, and Richmond, Va. — will transition to On-Demand, so shoppers in these regions can accept the batch they want, at the time they want to shop. We’ll be introducing these new features in each of these regions, to give shoppers even more resources for a great shopping experience.

Instacart

Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.