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Thread: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

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    Smiley Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    My Monday and Tuesdays are consistently slow with camming so I decided to try a vanilla side-gig.

    I did 32 hours at my vanilla job Mon Tues Weds, I did 25 orders total and made $643 including a promotional offer for being a new shopper. If you're in USA, looking for a vanilla side-gig, consider professional grocery shopping. Please signup thru my link

    thank you, I'm camming on the weekends & end of the week!
    Last edited by leiaswift; 08-28-2019 at 03:07 PM.

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    I am so confused how so many people are making this great money with Instacart. I’ve had 2 people in different, nearby cities tell me they make amazing money... but since signing up, there are never any shifts available in my city, no matter far out I look... and I live in the capital! It’s the biggest city here, but the only places with anything available are these other places surrounding it, in the middle of nowhere and I’m not gonna drive that far... I don’t get it... Maybe there’s just already too many drivers here and they snatch the shifts before I see them? Idk, just venting lol
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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    It definitely varies by city/ region. If your area is "hours only" you have early access you can signup for hourly shifts on Sunday at 9:30am, otherwise it is Wednesday 9:30am. If your area is "On demand + hours", you can signup for hours or accept a batch when it is offered. Definitely check the customer's address to make sure that it is not TOO far, to see if the batch is worth accepting.

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    I just signed up and did everything I had to do on the app. Do I just wait for the card to come in the mail? When I activate the card is that when I could see if there are any available jobs? I can't find any information about this. About how much do you get paid for each order? I imagine each one would be different depending on the size of the delivery.

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    WWW Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    Quote Originally Posted by whoknows234 View Post
    I just signed up and did everything I had to do on the app. Do I just wait for the card to come in the mail? When I activate the card is that when I could see if there are any available jobs? I can't find any information about this. About how much do you get paid for each order? I imagine each one would be different depending on the size of the delivery.
    Yes, it took less than a week to receive my card in the mail, after I signed up. If your area has "On Demand" then you might find available "batches" as soon as you login, but if it is "hours only" you will have to sign up for shifts ahead of time. Some areas have a "Hours + On Demand" combination.

    Pay on each order varies and a pay estimate is given before you accept or decline an order. Yes, pay varies depending on the size of the order.

    Payouts occur once per week via direct deposit, but it's possible to get an early payout for a 50 cent fee. I'm not sure how long it takes for "early payouts" to arrive.
    Last edited by leiaswift; 08-28-2019 at 03:06 PM.

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    Quote Originally Posted by leiaswift View Post
    Yes, it took less than a week to receive my card in the mail, after I signed up. If your area has "On Demand" then you might find available "batches" as soon as you login, but if it is "hours only" you will have to sign up for shifts ahead of time. Some areas have a "Hours + On Demand" combination.

    Pay on each order varies and a pay estimate is given before you accept or decline an order. Yes, pay varies depending on the size of the order.

    Payouts occur once per week via direct deposit, but it's possible to get an early payout for a 50 cent fee. I'm not sure how long it takes for "early payouts" to arrive.
    Thank you so much for answering all my questions. But now I have a couple more. What do you mean they give you an estimate? First of all, what's the reason they only give you an estimate? Second, how close is the estimate to the actual pay? Can you explain to me the differences between on demand and hours only (beside the shifts that you said)? Is there a place that answers all of these questions so I don't have to keep bothering you, lol? I do appreciate it though. Just so you know, I did sign up under your link.

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    I'm a bit excited about this. It'll hopefully give me an opportunity to not have to sit at the computer but yet I can still be my own boss and make money. BUT I just looked at some awful reviews on Glassdoor from people who've worked for them. I'm still going to give it a chance and form my own opinion but reading what people have said is leaving me a bit less optimistic about this.

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    Sometimes the pay can change slightly, but usually not but that much, for example if the store does not have items the customer needed, and no replacement is available, then you are not paid for "picking" that item, so the payment ends up being slightly less. (I'm not sure exact amounts but when it has happened to me it was like 30cents less, for example). I watched some youtube videos before my first scheduled hours, but generally the app really does walk you thru the process.

    It varies by area if there is "scheduled hours" or "on demand". I try to schedule hours ahead of time and if something comes up, I cancel my hours at least 6 hours before the shift begins. On demand is nice because you can just login to the app, anytime you're not working your scheduled-hours and see a list of "batches" that need to be done, if any of them look like good offers you can accept the one you choose.

    I like doing instacart as a flexible work option and something to get out of the house while working mostly independently. Some customers do prefer to tip in cash and in my area an appropriate tip for most average sized orders is $5 (if it is a huge order, more would be the suggested tip). The only other thing is have a decent car and keep it reasonably clean / organized so you don't "loose" shopping bags /items. Don't accept batches that are too far away or congested areas during rush-hour timing (know your local roads and general traffic patterns).

    Hope this helps!
    Last edited by leiaswift; 08-28-2019 at 03:06 PM.

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    I would totally do this, but I don't drive. Lol.
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    https://cammodelpay.com/ref?page=&campaign=&affToken=NDcx

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    This article gives more information and a few tips on how instacart works. Some of their tactics are understandable in my opinion (like rewarding those who are the most willing and available), but if you don't know how their algorithm works you may find it difficult to get started. I know a few people who do this and they say you need to learn the system to make it worth it. It kinda reminds me of a camscore to be honest. Here's a portion of an article below. .

    Bloomberg Businessweek
    Instacart Hounds Workers to Take Jobs That Aren’t Worth It

    Dozens of workers say the company’s app hectors them to take on low-paying grocery deliveries—and doesn’t stop there.


    When Instacart’s eponymous grocery delivery app gets a new order in, it typically alerts a nearby “full-service shopper,” its term for the worker who gathers and delivers the groceries, by sending the order to the worker’s phone with a bright green “ACCEPT” button and a repetitive pinging sound. But even if that shopper—who ostensibly has the flexibility to reject a gig—decides the latest one isn’t worth the time and effort, the on-demand food delivery platform usually doesn’t offer an option to decline.

    Workers are forced to entirely mute their phone, close the app, or sit through about four minutes of that strange pinging, which many say sounds like a submarine’s sonar and some compare to a time bomb. Those who wait it out sometimes wind up having to do it all over again when the same job pops back up in their queue. To avoid that, people often take jobs they didn’t want, says Buffalo, N.Y., Instacart worker Eric Vallett, who has tapped ACCEPT more than once to avoid another series of pings. “You just want to get away from that sound,” he says.

    The four-minute sonic barrage is among a slew of tactics Instacart uses to push workers to handle low-paying tasks they otherwise might reject, according to interviews with dozens of shoppers. They say the company has hounded them with phone calls, text messages, and threatening in-app messages, and that it quietly but explicitly punishes them for rejecting undesirable tasks by limiting their gig options and income. “We should have a right to say ‘I don’t want it’ without being penalized,” says Theresa Thornton, who shops for Instacart in Missouri City, Texas.

    Bloomberg Businessweek
    Instacart Hounds Workers to Take Jobs That Aren’t Worth It
    Dozens of workers say the company’s app hectors them to take on low-paying grocery deliveries—and doesn’t stop there.


    When Instacart’s eponymous grocery delivery app gets a new order in, it typically alerts a nearby “full-service shopper,” its term for the worker who gathers and delivers the groceries, by sending the order to the worker’s phone with a bright green “ACCEPT” button and a repetitive pinging sound. But even if that shopper—who ostensibly has the flexibility to reject a gig—decides the latest one isn’t worth the time and effort, the on-demand food delivery platform usually doesn’t offer an option to decline.

    Workers are forced to entirely mute their phone, close the app, or sit through about four minutes of that strange pinging, which many say sounds like a submarine’s sonar and some compare to a time bomb. Those who wait it out sometimes wind up having to do it all over again when the same job pops back up in their queue. To avoid that, people often take jobs they didn’t want, says Buffalo, N.Y., Instacart worker Eric Vallett, who has tapped ACCEPT more than once to avoid another series of pings. “You just want to get away from that sound,” he says.


    The four-minute sonic barrage is among a slew of tactics Instacart uses to push workers to handle low-paying tasks they otherwise might reject, according to interviews with dozens of shoppers. They say the company has hounded them with phone calls, text messages, and threatening in-app messages, and that it quietly but explicitly punishes them for rejecting undesirable tasks by limiting their gig options and income. “We should have a right to say ‘I don’t want it’ without being penalized,” says Theresa Thornton, who shops for Instacart in Missouri City, Texas.

    How much Instacart controls its shoppers isn’t just a matter of morale or public relations—it’s an existential question. Like Uber, Instacart’s classification of workers as contractors means they don’t enjoy the protections and benefits employees get. The company’s business model centers on keeping costs low enough to satisfy investors and keeping deliveries swift and reliable enough to win over customers, without exerting the kind of clear management authority that might lead a court to rule that the app’s shoppers are employees and therefore covered by laws like minimum wage.

    An Instacart spokesperson, who declined to be quoted directly, says the four-minute wait ensures workers have time to make a decision about whether to accept the task, using the info Instacart provides on the number of items, retailer, distance, and estimated earnings involved. The company wants to provide workers the best experience it can, she says, and they can mute the sound by muting their phones.

    Workers say Instacart isn’t really providing the sort of flexibility it advertises. The company reserves many of its jobs for people who sign up ahead of time to be available during particular shifts. To get substantial work through Instacart’s app, shoppers say, they need to earn “early access” to the shift signups by working 90 hours over the prior three weeks, or 25 hours over the prior three weekends. And that privileged status can be threatened if workers turn down jobs, or “batches,” they deem undesirable. They say Instacart may prematurely end their shift or add a “reliability incident” to their profile, which hurts their chances of getting the better work. Instacart says it doesn't require workers to work at particular times, that most workers select hours without getting early access, and that many appreciate that the reward system offers them a goal to pursue.

    One in-app message Instacart has sent workers warns them to “Watch it!” because their “reliability decreased” when they failed to “acknowledge a batch in time.” Another tells workers who chose not to accept a batch that to continue shopping they should confirm in the app that they are available, and that “Not doing so may affect your future ability to select hours for services.” In Washington state, Instacart worker Ashley Knudson says she was punished with a reliability incident even after she’d told the company she was stopping work for the day because her car had been broken into and was full of glass. “It’s certainly not flexible,” she says. The app does prompt workers to explain why they rejected an offer. The possible explanations it offers include the batch being too big or small and “other,” but not insufficient pay
    .

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    Default Re: Vanilla side gig (USA) - grocery shopping and delivery

    I've lost all interest in doing this. Just doesn't seem worth it to me. I make more money staying at home and working different sites on the computer.

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