At a time of record growth and competition between grocery delivery services, Instacart has announced plans to give holiday bonuses of $50 to $500 to its “shoppers” — the gig workers who actually buy and deliver groceries for customers.
“Today, we’re announcing special thank you bonuses for in-store shoppers and shift leads, as well as full-service shoppers. As a token of our appreciation, we’re providing shopper bonuses of up to $500 to say thank you for this extraordinary year,” the company said in a statement.
Instacart also acknowledged the year of challenges and uncertainty that led to unprecedented customer demand for grocery delivery and pickup — and the busiest year in the company’s eight-year history.
For Instacart’s full-service shoppers, the bonus amount will be based on the number of batches they shopped over the past year. In-store shoppers’ payouts will be based on the amount of hours worked over the past month, Instacart said.
Growth … And Competition For Workers
Instacart’s bonuses come at a time of rising competition in the grocery delivery industry, as rivals like Shipt, Peapod, Walmart and Amazon Fresh are all seeking to add employees to pick, pack and deliver orders for the fast-growing retail subset.
Because it’s still a privately-owned company, Instacart doesn’t report financial results or employee counts yet, but does say on its website that it’s doing business with 40,000 stores in 5,500 locations in the United States and Canada.
Instacart’s LinkedIn profile suggests it has fewer than 10,000 employees, but media reports have suggested it sought to add 300,000 people this year alone to its ever-growing stable of independent contractors.
Battle Goes Beyond Groceries
The self-titled “North American leader in online grocery delivery” has also been actively looking to expand into service to new non-food segments of the retail space. That includes deals with big-box department stores like Walmart and convenience stores like 7-Eleven as well as same-day cosmetics delivery via a deal with Sephora.
For now, with the pandemic resurging to unprecedented levels and state and local governments imposing new restrictions every day on businesses and travel, the demand for delivery will continue to grow.
While that’s good for the bottom line of Instacart and its rivals, it also poses problems and costs involved to ensure the health, safety and confidence of customers and workers.
As of August, the company had spent an estimated $20 million and delivered 450,000 safety kits to its shoppers, while also investing in ongoing updates to its guidelines to ensure compliance with mask use and other health standards.
“We have more shoppers on the Instacart platform than ever before, and we’re working tirelessly to continue to support this important community,” the company’s holiday bonus announcement said, before thanking workers for their continued dedication.