It was late Sunday afternoon and William Wang was still racing through the aisles of a Richmond grocery store to buy flour.
However, Wang wasn’t running errands for his family. He was working for Instacart, an online grocery delivery platform that partners with most Canadian supermarkets.
As shopping apps gain in popularity thanks to COVID-19, more people are signing up to deliver the items – and it’s paying off. The gig job has enabled Wang to earn up to $200 a day, but other Instacart shoppers have quit in frustration.
Instacart enables customers to shop from local grocery stores online and then sends a “personal shopper” to handpick those items and deliver the order.
“More people who are following staying home rules, are now relying on grocery delivery apps to get the items they need. As demand soars, which it has recently, some of them are even willing to offer huge tips to entice workers to pick up their orders,” said Wang, adding that he once got a $25 tip from a single order. That would have been highly “unusual” before the pandemic.
“I could only make $100 to $130 on six orders per day before COVID-19, but now I can earn $170 to $180 from four orders,” he added.
For people who have lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus, Wang suggests they consider working as a shopper to get through these tough times.
“If they are willing to work six days a week, they could make $4,000 per month. But all income needs to be declared, and the gas price couldn’t be redeemed.”
According to an Instacart spokesperson, the company, which was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, is seeing its highest customer demand ever and has more active shoppers than anytime in Instacart history.
“Overall, customer order volume is up more than 400 per cent year-over-year. Average customer basket size is also up by more than 25% month-over-month,” said the spokesperson.
“It’s not an easy gig, requiring lots of hard work”
However, the gig job also has its pitfalls.
Jennie Qin, who worked as an Instacart shopper in Richmond, quit her gig in frustration after working two months.
“The workload was more overwhelming than before – shoppers are required to pick up more than 20 items within an hour. And these items could be 5kg of flour or three bottles of four-liter milk.
“If the specific item you are looking for isn’t available in the store, you might need to find a replacement, scan it via the app and wait for approval from the customer. But they are not always on their phones at that exact moment, so you might end up stuck in the store and wasting time,” explained Qin.
Added to the shopping frustrations is the fact shoppers need to visit multiple stores at peak times and are putting themselves at risk to deliver groceries for people who are sheltering in their homes, Qin noted.
Wang agrees that the struggle is real, and shoppers need to be patient to explain to customers when items are limited or running low.
“But if you put it into a different perspective, we are also helping people who have problems getting out.”
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