OAKLAND, Calif.—Seated at a dimly-lit bar, a gregarious man dressed in a scarf and beanie reflecting his favorite local sports team, explained to Ars last week why he and some of his fellow Instacart shoppers plan on not working this Sunday and Monday.

"We’re going to sign up for shifts and then when it’s time, if I’m working from 10am to 1pm on [November 19], the first order, I’m going to decline it, not accept the batch," he said, using Instacart’s term for multiple pickups at a single retail location. "They’ll kick us off and we’ll continue to do that until they kick us off [for the day]."

The man, who goes by Ike, declined to let Ars use his full name for fear of reprisal—he also doesn’t want unwanted scrutiny from his colleagues at his full-time public sector job.

Instacart, which was founded in 2013 and has raised over $674 million in venture capital, lets customers purchase groceries online (at a markup) so "shoppers" can purchase the items directly in-store and then deliver them. Like other so-called "gig economy" startups like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and more, Instacart relies heavily on part-time or contract labor.

The San Francisco startup has been sued multiple times in recent years over what some workers say are notably inadequate wages. Instacart has agreed to pay at least several million dollars to settle the lawsuits, which will result in a typical settlement payout of a few hundred dollars per worker. The attorneys who brought the lawsuits, by contrast, stand to make millions.

The company only has about 300 full-time employees (almost entirely based at corporate headquarters), but it has hundreds of thousands of part-time, in-store shoppers; independent contractor itinerant shoppers; and contractor delivery-only workers across 154 cities nationwide.

Ike has only been a shopper for a few months, but he’s frustrated by what he’s learned from his colleagues on a closed Facebook group, which serves as an online water cooler for over 5,300 Instacart shoppers. To help report this story, Ars was invited to join this Facebook group.

There, workers can gripe, compare notes, and organize. This group hopes that its strike, however small it may be, will help customers and the company understand their grievances over claimed inadequate tips and alleged low pay for particularly bulky and heavy orders. It is impossible to know precisely how many Instacart workers will actually stop working.

"Part of the reason why we do it is to help the shoppers stand up for themselves," Ike explained while nursing his beer.

Instacart declined to speak to Ars on the record, but it said that it does know about the planned strike in Austin, Texas, and St. Louis, Missouri, and it did not expect any service interruptions.



Instacart provided Ars with the names and contact details of three shoppers who might have a different experience than those who plan to strike. Ars contacted them all by e-mail early Saturday morning. Of those, two responded.

One was Bradley Egan, a part-time employee and in-store shopper based in Houston, Texas.

"I was not even remotely aware of the strike going on this weekend," he wrote, noting that he is paid $20 per hour.

"Instacart is a solid company that treats its employees fairly and offers the potential to make plenty of money for the work required. If employees are upset about small delivery fees or not receiving tips, then they should try working any other delivery job (such as a restaurant delivery driver) where there is usually no delivery charge, no compensation for gas, and long/late grueling hours to work."

The commish

One of the strike’s leaders is Matthew Telles, a Chicago-based shopper who has been with Instacart for two years. He was also one of the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit (Camp et al v. Maplebear dba Instacart) that resulted in a $4.6 million preliminary settlement, which is set to be finalized in a Los Angeles court in January 2018. (Telles is set to receive $681 as part of the settlement.)

In a lengthy phone interview with Ars, Telles explained that "full-service shoppers" like himself who do the on-the-ground labor of shopping, texting with customers while in-store, paying, loading, and delivering groceries to customers, make their take-home pay in a combination of three streams of income.

The first, and the most important, is the "commission" pay per delivery, which is algorithmically calculated. Commission varies not only by region, but also day to day and week to week. Recently reported commissions are as high as $14 (New York City) or as low as just $1 (Evansville, Indiana).

When there are more full-service shoppers and delivery contractors available, the pay amount per worker goes down, and when there is higher demand for shopping, workers are encouraged to stay on the clock. There are also various bonuses ("bumps" in company parlance) and other incentives.

On top of that, shoppers make a per-item fee (typically $0.40)—however, this is not per unit of that item.

Ars spoke with six Instacart shoppers who said that they have routinely been made to pick up several heavy items, such as cases of bottled water, soda, or ice. Those items, of course, not only have to be loaded into a shopping cart, and then into a car, but they must be also hand-carried to someone’s door—sometimes up flights of stairs. Shoppers are still paid a $0.40 per-item fee even if someone orders one, five, or 10 cases of bottled water.

Photos posted on Twitter seem to bear this out.

There also appears to be an incentive for companies that order office snacks and beverages to simply do it through Instacart—where the fee is far lower than a commercial delivery service. However, most Instacart shoppers are driving small commuter cars, not large trucks with dollies and other equipment to help move bulky items.

"We are delivering these insanely fucking huge orders," one Bay Area shopper, who spoke to Ars on the condition of anonymity, said. "We’re delivering to Apple, Facebook, these huge companies that are putting in massive orders—Costco doesn’t know how big these orders are. If we call [the support line], they tell us ‘Tough shit, you’re going to get deactivated—you have to do it.’"

Instacart, however, said that shoppers are free to refuse orders that they feel they can’t handle at no penalty, or to call a shopper support hotline to have more shoppers dispatched, or to make multiple trips for an increased commission.

The third stream of income is the service fee and tips, which workers stress are vastly different.