Instacart: Groceries & Food: What Users Actually Complain About
Overview
The most significant pain points revolve around delivery reliability, poor customer service, and order accuracy issues. Pricing discrepancies and app functionality problems also contribute substantially to customer dissatisfaction, with many users experiencing multiple issues simultaneously.
Top complaints
1. Delivery Issues
cluster 1/8Customers frequently experience late, incorrect, or missing deliveries with poor communication about timing.
“delivery was pushed to 11pm and no food for family”
“My order was delivered to a different location”
“Driver stole groceries and left at wrong apartment when I'm home with a newborn”
2. Customer Service Problems
cluster 2/8Customers report unresponsive, unhelpful support that fails to resolve issues effectively.
“customer service has been the biggest let down”
“Support did not support me at all”
“Customer service tried to get ahold of the shopper and were declined calls”
3. Order Accuracy & Substitutions
cluster 3/8Shoppers frequently miss items, make poor substitutions, or ignore customer preferences.
“shoppers not following basic grocery list and missing items”
“Getting the wrong items or poor substitutes”
“shopper ignored replacement requests and checked out without attempting to get replacements”
4. Pricing Discrepancies
cluster 4/8App prices are consistently marked up compared to in-store prices, with unexpected charges.
“app marked up prices compared to actual store prices”
“The prices are higher than in the store”
“Instacart may overcharge you on weighted estimate items”
5. Shopper Reliability
cluster 5/8Shoppers frequently cut corners, lie about stock, or fail to follow instructions.
“Shoppers cut corners left and right and RARELY look at notes left for them”
“shoppers lying about items being out of stock”
“Shoppers smoked with my food in the car”
6. App Functionality Issues
cluster 6/8The app suffers from glitches, poor usability, and technical problems affecting the shopping experience.
“app functionality remains shoddy & inconsistent”
“There is some kind of glitch with the app”
“The app is very frustrating to use, nothing is easy to find or navigate”
7. Product Quality Concerns
cluster 7/8Customers frequently receive spoiled, expired, or poor-quality produce and other items.
“Too many times we have gotten rotten or moldy produce and tell them to please make sure it's not”
“Getting rotten or expired produce”
“items marked 'out of stock' when available in store”
8. Account & Payment Problems
cluster 8/8Customers face issues with account access, unexpected charges, and payment processing errors.
“charged $99 after canceling membership and deleting payment method”
“They charge you a 10-15% authorization hold”
“They automatically lock you out of your account if the address doesn't match your card”
More Food & Delivery pain reports
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This page is rendered from the App Pain API — the same clusters, evidence quotes, and severity scores are available as JSON (or via MCP for AI agents) for any app on both stores.
Read the API docs Get a free API keyBuilt from public app-store reviews · not affiliated with Apple or Google · clusters are LLM-generated from real user quotes.