Posted on 12/10/2025 8:54:47 AM PST by Twotone
Popular food delivery service Instacart has been using a shady algorithm that charges different prices to different customers on the same grocery items in the same supermarkets without telling them, according to an explosive study.
At a Target store in North Canton, Ohio, the wildly popular grocery app charged a customer $2.99 for Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter one day in September – while other Instacart users that day paid as much as $3.59 for the same jar picked up from the same location, according to the study.
At a Safeway supermarket in Seattle, shoppers using Instacart paid five different prices for the same Oscar Mayer Deli Turkey: $3.99, $4.31, $4.59, $4.69 and $4.89 — a range that spanned a whopping 23% between the lowest and highest markup. Photoillustration of an Instacart grocery bag with products and their range of prices.Nearly three-quarters of grocery items in the study published Tuesday were sold at different price points on Instacart. Merrill Sherman / NY Post Design
The same pattern emerged at Target and Safeway stores across four cities, according to Groundwork Collaborative and Consumer Reports, which used 437 shoppers in its survey, ordering groceries off the Instacart app for in-store pickup.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Interesting post—another reason to add to my long list of reasons I refuse to use apps on my cell-phone.
Not paying attention tax ,LOL
TARGET GETS STUPIDER EVERY DAY
Ok - I’m assuming this is only legal because the advertised price isn’t listed? Because otherwise this has to be illegal.
I’ll bet the algorithm uses details purchased from X, Insta, and META which details resident’s home locations, gender, income level, religion, sexual preferences, education levels etc so those “who can afford it” pay more.
Computers are now so powerful, that as a Pricing Guy, I could technically and economically price discriminate among customers to a vast and massively profitable level.
I personally wouldn’t do that. It’s dishonorable. But it is totally doable, and may even be legal (though I don’t know for sure…)
I want to know how the algorithm works and who gets to pay the lower prices and who gets squeezed for higher prices.
If I had to guess, I’d say that US citizens with cash in their hands are paying top dollar, and immigrants with EBT cards are getting great deals. But who knows?
This comes as absolutely no surprise at all. Just think what can happen when they quit putting prices on items at the store.
Airlines, for example, clearly play massive psychological and economic pricing games. I’ll bet no two people on any given flight paid the same price for a seat.
No idea, but I suppose price changes at stores are frequent, and time is needed to adjust on separate platforms.
The people they employ to select products do a s**tty job, especially on produce.
Refunds requested take a week to 10 days, even if you cancel before delivery of products.
Hard to tell whether it is illegal.
This lefty congress-critter claims they need a federal law to fix it—don’t know if he is correct or not:
https://www.threads.com/@senrubengallego/post/DSDA1ZVjiLP
I'd guess the polar opposite. Cash guy keeps track; freebie guy doesn't need to pay attention and bureaucracy isn't going to get involved.
I live in a geographically small state (CT) and there were wildly different pricing in all kinds of (identical by name) stores depending on the demographics of the area.
The pattern seemed to be that “rich” areas and “poor” areas had higher prices while blue collar areas had lower prices.
I would routinely drive a few miles out of my way to the shopping areas that served the blue collar folks.
I guess I wouldn’t disagree.
Either way it looks really bad — screw the taxpayers by taking advantage of, squeezing profit out of the people on food stamps, OR screw the taxpayers by squeezing them for extra money while giving great deals to people already supported by the taxpayers.
This stuff is evil.
If I were running an algorithm at Retail, I’d be charging the EBT and high net worth people the most, and the middle class the least.
When you are spending other people’s money, you are frivolous with it. I hear stories and see with my own eyes the profligate and stupid spending of the welfare class, and I would easily pick them clean of every last taxpayer dollar. Easy peasy.
For the very wealthy, time is of the essence. They don’t have the time to comparison shop, and convenience is paramount. I’d charge them top dollar too.
The Middle Class is more likely to be carefully watching their spend, so they would get better prices. But even within them, I could go look at their purchase histories and deduce who was an economically ignorant idiot and fleece them too.
This stuff is so powerful, we may need new laws. And I’m a guy who hates most laws.
Our local Aldi uses Insta cart when you order, inflates the prices, but only uses regular store employees to do the shopping and bringing your items to the car. So I won’t use them.
Same at the supermarket checkout.
EBT prices lower than retail on many items.
Then don’t friggin’ use instacart. How lazy can people possibly get anyway?
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