New Updates to Simplify Your Shopping Experience

In our recent renewed commitment to shoppers, we made a commitment to give shoppers support while you shop and beyond. Today, we’re furthering that commitment with a suite of new features that will simplify and improve your shopping and delivery experience.

Simplifying returns and reimbursements

We’ve heard from shoppers that our returns and reimbursement processes could be improved. This is why we’re introducing two new updates that will streamline these experiences for you, making shopping with Instacart more convenient than ever.

First, we’re introducing a new returns experience that will help you fulfill and get compensated for returns quicker and easier. Now, if a customer isn’t available to accept delivery of their alcohol or prescription items, you will be able to manage the entire return directly within the app, without needing to contact the Instacart Care team. Once you mark the item as unable to be delivered, you’ll see a new return flow directly in the app that will guide you back to the store location and give instructions on how to return the item. After you complete the delivery back to the store, you’ll automatically receive a return payment in the Shopper app.

This solution allows you to more seamlessly make a return and get back to what’s most important to you – whether that’s spent earning more on the platform or tending to other priorities. Simplified returns are now available for alcohol and prescriptions in all states except California.

Next, while you should keep your Instacart-issued payment card with you at all times while shopping, we know that sometimes you may pay for an order with your personal card and need to have the cost reimbursed. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to be reimbursed in a timely manner in the rare event you need to use your personal payment card.

Now, when an order needs to be reimbursed, you will receive an automatic push notification to begin the process. All previously uploaded receipts will be automatically attached, so you don’t need to re-upload receipts and other supporting information to get reimbursed. Additionally, you’ll be able to view the processing status within the Shopper app, so you’ll know when to expect your reimbursement.

Organizing your shopping experience

Shoppers expertly navigate through stores, selecting products for their customers carefully and thoughtfully. We’ve heard that we could make it easier for you to keep items organized during your shop, particularly for multi-order batches. This is why we’re introducing two new app updates to help you stay organized, making the shopping experience more seamless than ever. 

First, we’re implementing our new move item feature. When you are completing multi-order batches at these retailers, you will receive a notification after checkout if you have mistakenly checked out an item with the incorrect customer’s order. For example, if you scan Customer A’s eggs along with Customer B’s items, you’ll receive a notification to make sure the eggs are given to Customer A. This helps ensure that customers receive all of the items they purchased, leading to fewer customer complaints and higher ratings for you. This feature is currently available with Wegmans, Publix, and Schnucks, and we expect to add additional retailers in the future.

Second, you will now be able to filter items by customer with the launch of shopping list filters. With this feature, you can easily view an individual customer’s shopping list at a glance, helping identify which items correspond to each respective order to ensure you’ve gotten all of the right items for each customer.

“We’re introducing these new product updates to provide even more support to shoppers while they shop on the Instacart platform,” said John Adams, Vice President of Shopper & Fulfillment Product at Instacart. “We’re dedicated to developing important updates that simplify the shopping experience and make earning on our platform as easy as possible.”

These updates were developed in response to shopper feedback and are the latest development in our commitment to giving shoppers support while you shop and beyond. We look forward to continuing to build upon these commitments and introduce more helpful updates in the future.

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.