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Comment by jzig | Hacker News Reader

It's from those markups on sales tax [0].

[0]:https://np.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/5xj47l/ever_what_ins...

At this point, the store cost me $86.87. Instacart is now up to $142.47 after taxes and fees. This is a difference of $55.60, or 64%. I added a 10% tip (honestly, the shoppers deserve it, especially shopping in a grocery store on a Sunday for me), which brought my Instacart total to $154.80 for an $86.87 grocery bill, or a difference of $78.20.

Ouch.

So it basically boils down to be a service for those few who either can make more than $78 in an hour working rather than shopping, or those who don't like shopping (spending all day in front of bunch of monitors I love to go shopping just to anonymously socialize for a moment).

So as long as Instacart can survive with 1% of regular folks shopping with them, they are golden.

Wow, thats quite the markup. I wonder if thats because of the Instacart<->MarketBasket relationship, or if its similar for all Grocery Providers.

I have not noticed a significant increase in prices (other than Tips & Delivery) over my previous weekly spend at H-E-B, but...I seem to have a lot more targeted shopping cart doing it over InstaCart.

No matter what, for the hour+ it saves me, its probably well worth a <20% markup.

They mark up HEB prices too although not as bad as this. It's the main reason I stopped using them.

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