Who Gets the Instacart Tips (gratuity) from Customers, the Instacart Shopper or Instacart? You will be surprised…

Did you know as an Instacart customer how Instacart handles Instacart tips you leave in the app? Your shopper performs your weekly task of grocery shopping for you, which makes life so much easier. Yet your shopper is actually not getting the Instacart tips that you leave on the Instacart App in certain markets.

If you are not familiar with Instacart, it is a service app that provides grocery delivery to your home with the touch of a button. It is godsent to new mothers, the elderly and disabled. Or who despise the trip to their nearby supermarket, pet store, Costco and even the liquor store. It is now in all the major cities across the US and is growing with popularity daily.

I am currently an Instacart shopper in the South Florida market. Its has been serving this area for about 6 months now. Just like Uber, when Instacart goes into a new market they are in desperate need of shoppers/drivers in order to initiate their business in a new market. Instacart offers their drivers, depending on the need, a guaranteed hourly rate. In this area they offer $10 per hour. That is below minimum wage.  Once you deduct fuel plus wear and tear on your personal vehicle and the taxes of a 1099 contract position. Benefits such as vacation days etc. are naturally not included with the position.

It is not a great pay, but it does serve well, if you have no other income at your disposal. What makes such apps as Instacart, Uber, Lyft, Shipt lucrative is the freedom to choose the time you want to work. But like Uber, Instacart is exploiting their drivers in many slow markets in the United States.

So I pose again the question at hand. Who really gets the Instacart tips that customers leave as a tip on the Instacart app in the guaranteed hourly rate markets: the shopper, who is truly the deserving party, or Instacart, the app development company? Well, I am sorry to inform those  who leave Instacart tips on the app for the appreciation for a job well done that it really goes to Instacart coffers and is reused to pay the hourly guarantee to their shoppers.

Here is an example to your right:

You work 50 hours for the week. You receive $100.00 as tips from customers that week. Your earnings from orders are only, say, $300 in those 50 hours of work.

Remember, Instacart will guarantee the shopper $10.00 per hour, which is equivalent to $500 for the week (50 hrs x $10= $500). You expect to get $500 + $100 customer tips.

But check out Instacart’s funny math on payments to the shopper working in a market with an hourly guaranteed rate (e.g. $10.00).

Example: $100 (tips) + $300 (actual earnings for the week) + $100 (Instacart Hourly Guarantee)= $500 for the week.

So, basically, the customer leaving Instacart tips in the app is subsidizing Instacart hourly guarantee offered to shoppers.

Definition of tips (gratuity) in Wikipedia

“A gratuity (also called a tip) is a sum of money customarily given by a client or customer to a service worker, in addition to the basic price. Tipping is commonly given to certain service sector workers for a service performed or anticipated. Depending on the country or location, it may be customary to tip servers in bars and restaurants, taxi drivers, hair stylists and so on.”

A tip is in addition to the basic price. Now that being said, the correct thing morally and ethically for a corporation would be to allow the shopper get the gratuity as a gratuity. They perform the physical labor Not the Instacart App Corporation keeping the gratuity.

Personally, as a shopper, I feel that am being taken advantage of, as well as being robbed by Instacart. Why do I still do it? As they say, always follow the money. Instacart fits my needs as far as time management. It allows me to conduct other business while still being on call for Instacart.

For entrepreneurs looking for more information on the business that you use on your smart phone to earn additional income and other income opportunities, go to rideshareguides.com and review the network of blogs, vlogs, and forums to learn the latest news in this new industry called the Smartphone Application Work industry. You will learn all about these apps and their pros and cons.