A Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union investigation found that some grocery prices differed by as much as 23 percent per item from one Instacart customer to the next. In an inadvertently sent email, the company calls one pricing tactic “smart rounding.”

  • ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 小时前

    Companies can’t do this if you don’t use an app to shop for you. There are a bunch of reasons you shouldn’t use apps to shop even before you get to the insanity of the video.

    • The people who fill your cart are instructed to grab older, worse looking produce to reduce waste
    • It takes someone filling 10 instacart orders longer to shop than you would, meaning cold items will warm up more
    • You are already being charged a premium for the service, as well as maybe a delivery fee
    • The items you see to choose from are pushed by an algorithm. You’re practically unable to find unpopular items or compare two similar products

    Don’t use an app, don’t use a rewards program. If those things didn’t end up costing you money overall, companies wouldn’t offer them.

    • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 小时前

      Rewards programs can make sense without this kind of fuckery. My local pizza place isn’t adjusting their prices, they still match the paper take out menus and coupons. But they have a rewards program because it incentivizes people to come back, and repeat business is worth the slight discount.

    • sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 小时前

      just to say, I personally know two people who have done online order picking at two different grocery store chains in ireland and neither of them were told to get older things.

      you are also able to click “rest of shelf” on items on the website to see what else they have that are available alongside that item in the physical store.

      im just saying, those two things arent true or entirely true (it def takes effort to find lesser known things)

    • djsaskdja@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      4 小时前

      Interesting info, thanks. Unfortunately I don’t have much choice. Don’t have a car and I don’t live close enough to a grocery store.