It Started with Strawberries
I have a short memory. A habit can form out of necessity and after less than a month it becomes canon and I never go back to question how or why it happened. This past week I had something I don’t usually have- time to sit and think.
Two years ago I stopped physically going to the grocery store and shopped mainly on Instacart. (And Doordash, with the latter getting the majority of the profits on certain months.) After spending over an hour at Costco scouring through the scraps left by the hordes of shoppers in the early days of the pandemic, I gave up and decided to dial in the work.
There were rarely any issues in Northern California. The usual small mistakes were present; forgetting a small item or two. Nothing huge to worry about. Using Instacart in Southern California has been a different story. I have called customer care more times than I care to think about.
The problems started with small items being left off to receiving close to half of my shopping list wrong. If I wasn’t staring at the Instacart app in real-time watching what the shopper was putting into my cart, I was receiving mostly replacement items that were completely different from what I ordered.
This is petty, but I’m going to share. It wasn’t one of the bigger issues I had, but it shows the culture of what I’m talking about. A shopper wrote me to ask if instead of gooey fudge brownies, would I be okay with chocolate brownies with nuts. I asked if the consistency of the brownies seemed like it could be gooey or if it resembled cake (an extremely dry brownie that in my opinion disqualifies it from being called a brownie.) The reply was, “what’s the difference?”
There is a difference. It matters. It’s just that in the greater scheme of things I seem like an asshole for bringing it up. We were both wrong in a way. I was wrong for entering a wish list into an app and hoping that a human could decipher the meaning behind each item that was placed in my cart. I learned the hard way when I ordered fresh mozzarella, grape tomatoes, and a baguette with a handful of other items to meet the minimum. I was angry when the order showed up without the baguette.
For them, they completed over 95% of the order. For me, well, I had fresh mozzarella and tomatoes plus chocolates to enjoy after the meal, but now I would have to place an additional order or leave my home for the baguette. Customer service somewhat understood my plight, but they weren’t empathetic to my situation.
The shopper is wrong in that I don’t know if they stop to think that there is a human on the other side of the laundry list of items. What’s important to you? Apparently, being food-curious to them is a waste of time. Yes, I ordered veggie patties, but I also put chicken nuggets on my list and it doesn’t mean that you can substitute the veggie patties with turkey and keep going. Just text me, I’ll explain that I’m having a moment and it reflects on my week’s shopping.
I’ve mentioned these issues/items to friends and they tell me that I’m being a K-. I don’t think that applies to me and also I think it perpetuates the stereotype that a woman who knows her mind is being difficult. After a heated debate with someone that labeled me “difficult” I asked them if they would hand over x amount of money for groceries if half the order were the wrong items. Would they then keep it, pay for it, and spend the week eating items they didn’t want? No response.
The answer is no one would, but we’re in a difficult time where resources are short, people are tired, and the ones that are the most tired also happen to be the ones that are being exploited. It’s systemic, it’s unfair, and I understand, but I don’t think it has anything to do with my missing baguette. I think a lot of people that don’t care are hiding behind this pandemic and using it as an excuse.
It started with strawberries. I order the same pound of strawberries every week and on this particular day, I was charged for organic (which I didn’t order) and I received a half of pound of wilted strawberries (which was charged wrong to me.) I wish I had a recording of the customer service call where I had to prove that that the berries in my kitchen were not organic and how I arrived at the conclusion that they weren’t in fact a pound. I won the argument, but it’s because I’m equal parts great at arguing and I also loathe to do it.
I decided to cancel Instacart. It was my fault if I continued to order every week expecting a different result when I could just drive to the store and pick it up myself. A visit to my local grocery store and a walk through Trader Joe’s reminded me why I order online. Things are chaotic out there, I get it, but I still want my products.
That’s when I lucked out with Sprouts. There were no brand identities other than their own and I didn’t have to worry that they were shopping at a Sprouts twenty miles away from me, where I would get charged extra and receive different items from what I ordered. It simply worked.
So to be safe and sane, I’m sticking to stores that somehow don’t have the issues that the others do. Sprouts and Aldi’s have the items you want and I don’t run into an issue that the shopper can’t find an item for whatever reason. To tell you the truth — I’ve never actually been inside a Sprouts or Aldi’s. It would be interesting to go one day and learn if it’s the layout of their store or possibly the way they display their items.
As for the strawberry incident, I did pop into the grocery store in question. It had a horrible layout. The produce section was horrendous. The only fruits still in stock were the “organic” variety, but they had all seen better days. The shopper I had gotten upset with was making the best of a not-so-great situation. I’m probably expecting too much to want a text quickly explaining the situation and giving me options or asking me what route to take. Maybe that level of correspondence surpasses the buyer/shopper territory and delves into a closer bond that doesn’t yet exist in shopping apps.
The strawberries have improved. The improvement was due to luck and nothing to do with technology or customer service.
