5 ways Instacart is tapping into its army of on-demand workers
Known as "Instacart Shoppers," these workers play a valuable role in the grocery technology company's ongoing growth in retail vendor space, as evidenced by the ongoing release of new earnings opportunities and safety features for them.
In its latest shareholder letter, Instacart said that it began piloting several new initiatives to provide its gig workers with more ways to earn money, including taking videos of store shelves to improve inventory transparency, letting them deliver customer orders from a distributor's warehouse and allowing an Instacart shopper in one store the chance to find out-of-stock items from an order handled by another worker at another store.
Relying on its workers to track on-shelf inventory is "much more real-time than what we get from retailers," then-CEO Fidji Simo told investors in February.
Along with earnings, Instacart has also revamped how it scores its workers. In April, the company unveiled plans to roll out a new tool that ranks how well its workers shop for customers with a sliding scale from "Needs work" to "Standard" to "Good" based on the number and condition of items the worker selected for their orders completed in the last 90 days.
That new tool is factoring into new and updated reward tiers as part of the Cart Star shopper rewards programInstacart revealed at the end of last month. The changes to the rewards program also include new perks, such as priority batch access by tier and a free Instacart+ membership for Diamond Cart shoppers, the highest tier.
Here is a roundup of the latest moves by Instacart to attract and retain on-demand workers.
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Business Insider
6 days ago
- Business Insider
I asked ChatGPT's study mode if I should buy a car. The questions it asked me back convinced me to stay car-free.
For months, I've been paralyzed with indecision every time I walk past a car dealership. It all started earlier this summer when my partner bought his first car — a five-year-old black Ford Fusion — ahead of a move to Indiana for his Ph.D. program. Since then, we've both been using the car we named Raven, and I've become used to picking up groceries with ease and leaving home 10 minutes before a dinner party starts. But with him leaving in three weeks and taking Raven along for the ride, I've become overwhelmed with confusion every time I ask myself: Should I buy a car? So I asked ChatGPT. And not just any ChatGPT: I chose study mode, a new version that has freshly appeared in the toolbar as a book icon. OpenAI says it "helps you work through problems step by step instead of just getting an answer." It can also quiz its users and prompt them to explain their reasoning. I did not have high hopes, having witnessed many disastrous ChatGPT-generated essays that friends in academia have had to grade. Still, the study mode asked me enough well-rounded questions to help me make the unexpected decision to remain car-free. What I knew before turning to ChatGPT I live in a co-housing community with a garage to store and charge cars. I also happen to live downtown in a Bay Area city, two blocks away from a Chinatown, where I can find just about any food I need. Still, having a car would mean not having to frequently turn to Instacart because shopping often overwhelms me. It would mean being able to access our regional park full of redwoods, where there is no cell signal and no chance to Uber back home. I prefer EVs because they emit less, and I like the peace of mind of knowing that the price of oil, which fluctuates with geopolitics, won't affect my budget as much. Most of my friends own cars and started sending me their hot takes. I started watching Instagram reels on car recommendations, until they had fully taken over my "For You" page. Based on those criteria, I found options like a used Nissan Leaf and a pre-owned Tesla. A used 2017 Nissan Leaf would only have between 50 and 80 miles of range per charge, but it could cost as little as $7,000, not including taxes. Teslas are a more expensive option, but they do have decent range and technologies that compensate for my lack of skills, plus many people are looking to sell. In my head, I felt like I spent plenty on rides and deliveries to match the convenience a car could provide. Fortunately, ChatGPT study mode explained to me that not only was I wrong, but there was so much more to consider. Study mode asked me surprising questions and taught me new concepts Study mode started by asking me what level of studies I'm at, to which I explained that I have already gone through grad school, but have other pressing life problems. I then gave a general description of my circumstances and asked whether I should buy a car. The AI commended me for making a "thoughtful, not impulsive" decision and explained the concept of being " car poor," meaning buying a fancier car than necessary or having monthly payments cut into other life expenses. Since I mentioned grocery deliveries and Uber trips, study mode then prompted me to think about how many times I use these services a week. I get grocery deliveries about three times a month, plus about two Uber trips and two takeout deliveries a week. Study mode soon crunched the numbers for me. The conveniences I see as indulgences actually cost me around $3,000 a year, but a car would cost me between $6,000 and $8,000 a year, not including the down payment I would need to put down for the car. "Are the extra ~$3,000 — $4,000 per year worth the added freedom and independence? Do you feel anxious or limited without a car?" the AI asked. 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Washington Post
29-07-2025
- Washington Post
What your barista thinks of your small talk game
'Maybe it's just a midwestern thing, but can we please stop having the cashiers ask intrusive questions to the patrons as they check out?' a woman pleaded in a viral tweet this month. The 'intrusive' question: 'Any big plans for the night?' Grumbling about small talk with service workers is the bread and butter (in a complimentary basket) of social media. Considered outside the context of likes and retweet buttons, these complaints can sound a bit like 18th-century gentry commiserating about the help. 'Uber drivers PLEASE stop trying to make conversation,' groused a rider on Reddit, criticizing the driver's 'constant yapping.' Another woman, ordering through Instacart, complained of her shopper's incompetence in failing to secure her Neapolitan ice cream without engaging her in a back-and-forth. Other commentary is friendlier — across social media, the theory that Trader Joe's employees are trained to flirt with customers is repeated as fact. Despite the rise in self-checkout, the quiet creep of robotaxis and the ubiquity of door-to-door delivery services, opportunities for small talk between customers and service workers persist. And while person-to-person interactions are more optional than ever, some things haven't changed: Some customers complain when they encounter small talk, and some customers complain when they don't. In a paper in the European Journal of Marketing published in 2022, a group of marketers laid out the argument for this phenomenon: In customer service, you truly cannot please everyone. There are 'exchange oriented' customers, who value efficient service and are impatient with small talk. ('Exchange oriented customers may be particularly well-suited to being served by virtual assistants or service robots,' the researchers mused.) Then there are 'communally oriented' customers, who value connection and positively glow in response to questions like, 'Any fun plans for the weekend?' Given this, the researchers suggested, 'Service providers should consider customers' relationship orientation before starting a conversation with small talk.' For America's 24.6 million service workers — who make an average of $33,396 each year, half of the national average income — this means trying to read body language, note eye contact and interpret tone in a matter of seconds, sometimes while working an espresso machine. 'I usually start my interactions by saying, 'Hey how's it going?' so they can either engage with that, or they can blow through it,' says Allie Lawrence, a barista and manager at an independently owned coffee shop in Brooklyn. 'It's kind of like you're having to micro-therapize people before even interacting with them because you're not sure what the energy is you're going to get.' Scotty Ross, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and drives for Uber, starts with, 'How's your day going?' And then, 'I kind of catch the vibe from there,' he says. (When he's a passenger and doesn't feel like talking, he gives polite one-word answers. 'It feels like one of those 'Seinfeld' episode situations,' he says.) Customers who respond harshly to friendly overtures may not realize that at some businesses, small talk is a requirement for workers, not a personal choice. When Lawrence trains new workers, she suggests a few phrases, like, 'Hey, how's it going?' or, 'Good to see you, what can I get started?' At some places, she says, workers can get written up for skipping this step. 'It is kind of our job to give a 'wow' experience,' says William, a Trader Joe's employee in Seattle who asked to withhold his last name to speak freely about his workplace. 'Hey, how's it going?' is William's only prepared line. 'From there, if they seem like they want to talk, I'll ask more questions. If not, I'll let it be, I just ring them out and bag them and let them go.' Shoppers tell him about their ongoing chemotherapy and the death of their beloved cats. 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Tips can make the difference, he pointed out, between making around minimum wage in Arizona (before the cost of gas, car maintenance and taxes) and making double that. Lawrence also sees a correlation between conversation and tips. 'The more of an experience or a show that I'm able to curate for the customer, potentially that results in higher tips,' she says. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski is credited with first describing 'a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words.' In 1923, he described these exchanges, which he called 'phatic communication,' as 'purposeless expressions of preference or aversions, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious.' Like, say, exchanging observations about the weather with a stranger before making them an oat milk latte. Malinowski's definition hints at why small talk can be strangely polarizing — it is by design both meaningless and crucial. 'It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy,' Elizabeth Bennet demands, when her dance partner refuses to make small talk. 'I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.' The European marketers might say that Elizabeth is more 'communally-oriented' and Darcy is more 'exchange-oriented.' Ella Fuller, a server in Iowa City, says that these exchanges are a part of the job she enjoys. 'If there's a place in between small talk and overshare, I've always really liked that part of service,' she said. Fuller works at a bar and cafe and had previous gigs at a barbecue spot and an Italian restaurant. At each of these jobs, she says, she had experiences where instances of small talk devolved into customers making inappropriate comments about her body. At the barbecue spot, she told those customers to knock it off. But at the Italian restaurant, she felt obligated to smile through all customer behavior. She eventually brought the issue to management and was supported. The idea that the customer is always right, writes researcher Dana Yagil, 'implies, for customers as well as for service providers, that customers are entitled to misbehave, while service providers are expected to put up with such misbehaviors.' A shift, as of late, is that service workers are responding to customers with their own complaints and screeds. On TikTok, nearly 6 million followers tune in to watch actor and longtime server Drew Talbert dramatize restaurant behavior from a server's perspective. Bartenders go viral for satirizing pushy customers. Lawrence, who does stand-up comedy, makes videos reenacting interactions with customers who inexplicably demand made-up coffee drinks. Servers have taken to TikTok to imitate the 'Gen Z stare,' a reference to the way some young adults stare coldly at servers, as if rebuking them for the question, 'Hi, what can I help you with today?' Finding the right balance of small talk is a customer-facing worker's struggle. 'I don't know why — I can't stop myself — I talk too much,' moans Willy Loman in 'Death of a Salesman,' comparing himself to more successful colleagues. Ross advises other Uber drivers to let customers do 80 percent of the talking. 'Try not to interrupt them and tell your own stories,' he cautions. 'Basically, be an interviewer.' He notices that he gets his best tips when he's drinking an energy drink and feels cheerful and energized. That service-oriented self isn't always accessible, and that affects his income. 'The first week after my dad died I don't think I got any tips because I was in a bad mood, but I still needed to make some money,' he says. 'You never really know what someone's going through,' he notes — whether driver or rider.
Time Business News
28-07-2025
- Time Business News
The Rise of Contactless Delivery and What It Means for Logistics
The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped consumer behavior and logistics operations almost overnight. Social distancing, health concerns, and rapid e-commerce growth prompted a shift away from traditional delivery models. Contactless delivery quickly emerged as a safer, more efficient alternative. As consumers began prioritizing hygiene and convenience, delivery tracking evolved from a 'nice-to-have' to a critical component of logistics. Today, logistics providers are rethinking last-mile operations, driven by new customer expectations and digital capabilities. This article explores what contactless delivery is, why it's here to stay, and how it's transforming logistics—from local drop-offs to international shipping. Contactless delivery is a fulfillment method where couriers deliver items without requiring direct interaction with the recipient. Unlike traditional delivery that often involves signatures or hand-to-hand exchange, contactless delivery uses: GPS-verified drop-offs One-time PINs (OTP) Photo confirmation via mobile apps These changes were rapidly adopted during the pandemic but are now standard practice across package delivery services. E-commerce retailers, food delivery apps, and third-party logistics companies alike have embedded contactless delivery into their standard workflows. Example: Amazon's 'Photo on Delivery' feature and UPS's signature-waiver policies are now widely accepted across urban and suburban markets. What began as a temporary response to a global health crisis has become a long-term consumer preference. Customers now expect safety, speed, and convenience with every delivery. Key drivers: Safety and hygiene: Customers want minimal physical contact. Customers want minimal physical contact. Digital convenience: Mobile apps and push notifications make contactless delivery seamless. Mobile apps and push notifications make contactless delivery seamless. Efficiency: Couriers save time by avoiding waiting or collecting signatures. Benefits for logistics operations: Reduced handling and faster delivery cycles Fewer failed deliveries Better customer reviews and loyalty These changes support the rising demand for fast delivery, especially in urban centers where time windows are tight. Example: Instacart and DoorDash both saw a permanent shift to contactless options even after lockdowns eased, proving the model's staying power. The shift toward contactless fulfillment has forced delivery companies to retool operations and adopt smarter systems. Operational adjustments include: No-signature drop-offs using GPS and photo proof using GPS and photo proof OTP delivery codes to ensure secure receipt to ensure secure receipt Mobile confirmation systems integrated with customer apps Fleet management has also evolved. Route optimization software now accounts for unattended deliveries, minimizing delays and improving drop efficiency. Companies like Serene Transports have embraced these changes by integrating app-based confirmations and contactless proof of delivery, ensuring both customer safety and operational efficiency. Example: FedEx's Delivery Manager system enables recipients to leave specific instructions, skip signatures, and receive real-time notifications. Modern consumers expect deliveries to be: Seamless Transparent Real-time What customers value: Accurate ETAs Instant delivery confirmation Easy-to-access tracking through mobile apps A delivery company that cannot meet these expectations risks losing loyalty. Real-time notifications and location tracking are no longer differentiators—they're expected features. Example: Shopify's Shop app provides real-time updates from multiple retailers, showing how delivery experience is becoming a key part of customer retention. While contactless delivery is common in domestic logistics, implementing it globally presents unique challenges. Key issues: Customs and regulatory compliance Language barriers and localization of delivery instructions and localization of delivery instructions Infrastructure readiness for real-time updates across borders Adapting contactless systems in cross border trucking requires smart compliance with customs protocols and seamless digital communication. Logistics tech providers must invest in globally interoperable systems to support cross-border efficiency. Example: Flexport and DHL use mobile and cloud-based tools to manage international proof of delivery and customs paperwork with minimal manual intervention. Looking forward, the contactless model is expected to evolve further with emerging technologies. Key future trends: Drone and autonomous vehicle delivery for low-contact, high-speed shipping for low-contact, high-speed shipping AI-powered route planning to reduce delays and fuel use to reduce delays and fuel use Integration with smart home systems—like smart door locks, parcel drop boxes, and IoT-connected garages The model also offers long-term sustainability benefits by lowering failed deliveries, cutting paper waste, and enabling leaner logistics. Example: Walmart is testing smart garage deliveries in partnership with Level Lock, showing how contactless delivery can integrate directly into homes. Contactless delivery has transformed from a pandemic-era workaround into a core logistics capability. It offers speed, convenience, and transparency—all of which are underpinned by robust delivery tracking systems. As logistics becomes more customer-centric and digitally driven, businesses that invest in contactless models will lead the way in speed, satisfaction, and scalability. Those who delay digital transformation risk being left behind in a logistics environment that demands agility, visibility, and trust. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
