Company says changes were designed to help, not hurt, its shoppers

Sarasota and Manatee county residents who deliver groceries and other items for the Instacart service are declining small orders as a protest of what they say are cuts in compensation by the San Francisco-based company.

Sherri Cliburn, who says she has been an Instacart shopper since March 2017, says that a nationwide adjustment in compensation that became effective in Florida on Monday has reduced her pay from the equivalent of about $9 an hour to $3 an hour by removing an item commission and a delivery fee, among other changes.

Instacart, which says it has 70,000 U.S. shoppers, has an app and a website through which customers can order items from stores including Publix and Aldi and have them delivered.

What the protesters are calling a "soft boycott" is taking place nationwide, Cliburn said, which a Monday article in the Chicago Tribune supported. In a limited job action, shoppers like her are ignoring customers' orders that are too small and pay too little to be worth taking. The company has about 60 shoppers in the Sarasota area and about 70 in the Bradenton area, she said.

The Sarasota resident has been handing out printed flyers to customers explaining the problem. It reads, in part, that Instacart is paying its shoppers "significantly less, 50 percent less" and it urges customers to tip their shoppers after delivery, which will prevent the company from figuring the amount of the tip into its compensation calculations.

A company spokeswoman speaking on background said the change in compensation, which began with a pilot program in April in Boulder, Colorado, was intended to provide more consistency, clarity and transparency for shoppers. Before taking a job, it gives shoppers an estimate of earnings, a list of specific items requested, a map of the store and the location of the customer.

Instacart also switched bonuses from a weeklong period, which meant one bad review could eliminate the entire week's bonus, to being available after every job. It also made it easier to give a shopper tips and for the first time compensated them for delivering heavy products.

The vast majority of shoppers are in favor of the changes, a company spokeswoman said, and the shoppers' job action has not affected the company's revenue or its customers.

But a shopper posting to the Sarasota employees' Facebook page disagreed.

"So I just ran into one of my regular customers at Walgreens and she notified me that she has switched from Instacart to Shipt because of the way IC has been treating their shoppers. She's telling all of her friends to make the switch as well.

"So my question at this point is how many shoppers and customers does Instacart have to lose before they realize they are driving their business into the ground?"