Using Instacart’s “send as gift” function

May 4, 2022 11:11 AM

If I place an Instacart order today that’s scheduled for Sunday and I use their new “send as gift” function, will the recipient get a text now, spoiling that there’s a scheduled gift in a few days?

I want to send my aunt a grocery delivery for Mother’s Day, which I’ve done in the past just entering her address but leaving all the contact info as mine, and texting her when it was about to be delivered. I noticed that they have a new “Send as gift” function, where you can enter their name/phone number and pick a digital card as well. If I use this function, are they going to get a confirmation text now about the scheduled delivery? And if the shopper has to make substitutions, will I still be the one contacted? I didn’t see the answers with a cursory Google so figured I’d ask if anyone here has experience with this function of Instacart. Ideally I’d place the order, correspond with the shopper in case of substitutions, and then my aunt would get a text with the digital card when it’s on the way to her.

posted by skycrashesdown to Technology (4 answers total)

Best answer: Based on this help article I think that when you place the order they will get a text.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:48 AM on May 4, 2022

Best answer: When I did this, they got the alert with the card right away. I didn't have any correspondence with the shopper, but when they left the store, made the delivery, etc. both I and the recipient got the alerts.
posted by assenav at 1:35 PM on May 4, 2022

Best answer: I've worked for instacart during the pandemic and would be wary of both using both the "send as a gift" function and ordering ahead of time.

Please see TLDR at the bottom, I started getting a little too detailed

Scheduled orders usually get paired with other, semi-alike orders, and are released to the general population of instacart shoppers usually hours and hours ahead of the anticipated delivery time. Then, if a shopper thinks that the number of items + distance from location + instacart minimum payment + added tip is worth their time, they will select to shop and deliver that order. They are not told what the true delivery window is, and will be given a delivery window based on time from when they decided to shop an order.

Often a good tipping order will be paired with a no tipping order, so that they will still be picked up and delivered that day. Sometimes the tip spread between two orders is not enough for the shoppers smart enough to calculate what would be an hourly minimum wage + gas to pick up, and it lingers and lingers until someone desperate enough picks it up, hence why they get released so far in advance.

The way orders go out to shoppers is tiered - first orders are offered to the highest rated shoppers and the newest shoppers. An order that is "good" (tip, items, etc) will get picked up immediately. If not, after a while it's offered to a shopper pool of lower rated shoppers.


TLDR - for best instacart service, if you can, place your order the same day. It gets released to shoppers as it's own batch, and is unlikely to be scheduled to be shopped with another. The way they have worded the gift orders makes me worried that shoppers will be asking the wrong person, or have all texting communication cut off, for replacements requests. If you order same day, as soon as you get the notification that the shopper is at the store, send a friendly hello and let them know that you are available. If you then find that they are not asking you about replacements, or ignoring your requests, contact customer service to get a different shopper.
posted by lizjohn at 3:40 PM on May 4, 2022 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks, all! I’ll just place it Sunday morning and do it the way I’ve done in the post to avoid any issues.
posted by skycrashesdown at 4:19 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]