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Kara Carmichael has been an Instacart shopper for years in Orlando, Fla. It's how she's been able to support her family, she told TechCrunch. But she says she has noticed an increase in third-party bot activity that has made shopping "nearly impossible."
Despite the high demand for Instacart amid the COVID-19 pandemic, shoppers like Carmichael are facing difficulties claiming orders within the shopper app. This is the result of what appears to be some sophisticated work by third-party apps like Ninja Hours, Sushopper and others.
"They grab the batches within a blink of an eye," Carmichael said. "I can barely see the amounts offered. Sometimes I may even just receive a notification because the batch has been taken before it was even registered in my app."
Ninja Hours appeared on the scene about a year ago in the Little Havana community in Miami, according to Logan B., an Instacart shopper with experience using Ninja Hours. Shoppers could pay Ninja Hours about $25 to $35 a week to get access to hours for the following week and in exchange, Ninja Hours would take over the shopper’s app to claim hours on their behalf. This was during a time when Instacart required shoppers to claim hours rather than on-demand orders.
[...] Logan says Instacart eventually caught on to Ninja Hours, which forced the service to shut down. Ninja Hours then became Hours For You, which emerged in the fall, Logan says. Hours For You then folded into Sushopper earlier this year.
[...] Other shoppers didn't seem to notice this was going on, Logan says, because Sushopper would claim the orders before they would even appear on the apps. But now that Sushopper has shut down, there's a new service — one that is not quite as fast.
[...] This increase in bot activity comes at a time when Instacart is ramping up its hiring of full-service shoppers. Just yesterday, Instacart announced it's adding 250,000 more shoppers to meet demand. That came after Instacart announced last month its plans to hire another 300,000 shoppers.
The increased number of full-service shoppers coupled with third-party bots quickly claiming orders, it's no wonder why some shoppers are feeling frustrated. Behind the scenes, Instacart is working to ban unauthorized third parties from accepting batches. In the meantime, the company is recommending shoppers not engage with those services.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 27 2020, @12:01AM (4 children)
If enough Shoppers refuse to pay Ninja Hours or Sushopper, then they can't fill the orders and would go out of business, right?
If they only get a couple people paying, then those people can't fill all the orders, right?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @12:05AM
Kramer : They just write it off .
Jerry : Write it off what ?
Kramer : Jerry all these big companies they write off everything
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Monday April 27 2020, @04:33AM (1 child)
TFA says that part of the sign up is that you hand over your login credentials. I would guess that they are using those to claim the batches. It's almost a tragedy of the commons situation. If everybody refused to use them the shoppers would be better off, but the ninja program is fast enough to claim all the batches, so the first few shoppers to sign up get an advantage. Eventually everyone has to sign up just to compete, and you have another locked in middleman taking a percentage.
Instacart should start disabling any account that claims a batch faster than humanly possible. Or just make every batch display for at least five minutes, then randomly assign them to one of the accounts that offered to claim them.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @09:51PM
It looks like Instacart is trying to plug an arbitrage opportunity by playing cat and mouse. The easier way to do this is for Instacart to create their own "bot" that competes with the 3rd parties. Perhaps it's free; perhaps it's for a small upcharge. Obviously there is value here since the 3rd party apps are charging a fee.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Monday April 27 2020, @05:04AM
And if we all refuse to pay exorbitant prices for cable and refuse to work for low wages then cable will come down in price and wages go up. Right? There is so much that could be done if enough people put their weight behind things and took the risk that others would also act in the interest of all. It just doesn't happen that often. There's a name for this but my dinner is done and I need to pull it out of the oven. Forgive me! :)