Instacart, a delivery service that partners with various grocery stores, has blown up, especially over the past year. After becoming extremely tired of lugging like 50 pounds of groceries to my apartment every week, I decided instead of throwing my back out, I'd throw down the cash to have my groceries delivered via Instacart. I hesitated to use Instacart at first, because my neighborhood grocery changed drastically when Instacart came in. The already chaotic urban grocery store became a stressful place to be between cramming in a giant refrigerated section for Instacart and using Instacart-only cash registers (leading to massive lines down each of the grocery aisles when checking out). Plus the shelves seem to always look like they've been blown by a hurricane, since there's such a huge influx of Instacart people coming in to fill deliveries.
I'm sure these are all growing pains that will sort themselves out eventually. I'd love to think I'm making the choice to use Instacart rather than being finagled into it. At some point this year, curiosity and general urban exhaustion inspired me to sign up for an Instacart account, throw down the $140 yearly subscription for free deliveries, and try it out. Here's what I discovered:
Despite my grievances, I have been very happy with my Instacart experiences. While it's not my main method of grocery shopping, I definitely use it regularly and plan to keep it up! Here's hoping the grocery stores will catch up to Instacart's fast-paced growth and don't forget to make grocery shopping a great experience for their customers too.