Instacart
Grocery delivery and pickup service that sends personal shoppers to local stores.
HN commenters use it to skip time-consuming grocery trips12, to quickly replace forgotten ingredients3, and to get groceries when they can't or don't drive.45 The most common complaint is careless shoppers and weak quality control, with occasional rotten or poorly packed items.67
Why people recommend it
Saves time · 3
Commenters say delivery beats collecting, checking out and carrying groceries themselves, especially with a busy schedule.
“The service provides a tremendous value”
“I use Instacart every week. It's clearly valuable over shopping yourself for a lot of people”
Show 1 more
“I use Instacart to deliver 1-4 items for me instead.”
No car needed · 2
People who can't drive or don't own a car rely on it to get groceries.
“I rely on Instacart as I live alone and can't drive anymore”
“I've ordered from both of them, albeit not recently”
Grocery platform · 1
One user who orders from both services finds Instacart's grocery platform better than DoorDash's.
“The grocery platform of Instacart is better”
Long-term satisfaction · 1
A heavy user who orders several times a week says they have been a generally happy customer for years.
“I am a generally happy customer of both parties for years now”
Caveats and dissent
Shopper care · 1
Shoppers may rush and pack items badly, such as putting ice cream next to a hot rotisserie chicken.
“the instacart shoppers really don't care about service”
Quality control · 1
Items sometimes arrive rotten and need to be refunded.
“The service provides a tremendous value”
Payments bug · 1
One user switched to DoorDash for groceries because of a payments bug in Instacart.
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- DoorDash to acquire Instacart 9 mentions
Data: instacart.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 9
“I use Instacart to deliver 1-4 items for me instead.”
“The service provides a tremendous value”
“The grocery platform of Instacart is better”
“the instacart shoppers really don't care about service”
“I've ordered from both of them, albeit not recently”
“instacart has a payments bug”
“I use Instacart every week. It's clearly valuable over shopping yourself for a lot of people”
“I am a generally happy customer of both parties for years now”
“I rely on Instacart as I live alone and can't drive anymore”