Several of my friends have raved about Instacart recently, saying the convenience and time savings are well worth the meager delivery fees. Normally I'm not tha

Several of my friends have raved about Instacart recently, saying the convenience and time savings are well worth the meager delivery fees. Normally I'm not that into such services. However, I desperately needed groceries yesterday, but I was feeling sick and didn't want to get out of the house. So I decided to give it a try. I got on the site as a first-time user and entered my zip code. From a list of stores around the area, I pointed it to a grocery store in my neighborhood. Then I started searching for items. When I saw the prices on the Instacart list, I did a double-take. Turns out there is a margin, and it is at least 20%, if not much more. The reason I noticed this is because I shop at that store every week and am very familiar with the prices of the items I was browsing. Keep in mind I was browsing around 11 am, with a delivery window of 2-3pm, so it wasn't (or shouldn't have been) subject to surge pricing either. And like you say, the exact margin is hidden, and even the fact that they do have a margin isn't explicitly stated anywhere that I could see. So if I wasn't familiar with the prices at that specific store, I may have just gone with it. This lack of transparency (and in fact I can go one step further and claim it is purposeful obfuscation) immediately eliminated all my trust in Instacart. I closed the window without completing my order. I have since received three emails from them (in 24 hours) reminding me that I have an incomplete order. Suffice it to say, I have no intention of logging back in, ever.