Cheapism / DALL-E 3
Instacart can save a dinner or a party in a flash with its grocery delivery service, but there are still some things that require a trip to the store in person. Thinking about making a panic order? As a frequent taste tester at Cheapism, I use Instacart all the time. Here are the items you should definitely avoid before making your next Instacart order.
Beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the beholder — and when it comes to fruit, not everybody has the same standards. One man’s trash apple is another man’s treasure apple, you know? Picking fruit is a highly personal experience, and you don’t want to pass the buck to a complete stranger.
Beauty isn’t always in the eye of the beholder, though. The picking of fresh seafood is probably a job best suited for yourself, and not a complete stranger. If you’re like me, you obsessively inspect every single inch of a piece of fresh fish when you buy it, and it’s a fair chance that your shopper isn’t going to do that.
You really want to see flowers in person before you buy them. Even if your shopper picks out the most beautiful bouquet in the store, there are so many more variables to be surmounted. How long are they going to be sitting before they arrive? How many stops is your driver making first? Are they going to get smashed into something in the car on the way? Grab these yourself.
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Physical gift cards can easily get lost or stolen, and according to Instacart’s policy on gift cards, they’re non-refundable. These days, gift cards are probably best kept digitally.
Related: The Most Annoying Instacart Shopping Fails, According to Redditors
Talk about all the things that could go wrong here. It’s precarious enough to get eggs from the grocery store back to your house when you’re the one who's shopping. You better hope those eggs are safe in your delivery person’s car. And yeesh, I hope they’re not sitting in the sun for too long.
With price markups, taxes, and delivery fees, you’re probably paying an insane amount for a single bottle of water. You’re better off grabbing a bulk pack. Never hurts to have extra bottled water.
If you’re ordering a by-the-pound hot meal on Instacart, you better get ready to spend. I can barely keep my poundage under control when I’m at the Whole Foods hot bar myself; there’s no way I expect a stranger to pull this off. You never really want the last rotisserie chicken left on the rack, either. There’s a reason nobody’s touched it yet.
