New York — Instacart said Monday it was ending a program where some customers saw different prices for the same product ordered at the same time from the same store when using the delivery company’s service.
The program was intended to help grocery stores and other retailers learn more about the types of prices customers will pay for items, similar to how stores offer different prices for the same products in different locations. But then she raised the alarm a report of Consumer Reports and two progressive advocacy groups, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union, said Instacart offered nearly three out of every four shoppers’ grocery items at multiple prices in a trial.
“At a time when families are working extraordinarily hard to save every dollar on groceries, these tests have raised concerns, leaving some people questioning the prices they see on Instacart,” the company said in a blog post on Monday. “This is not acceptable – especially for a company built on trust, transparency and affordability.”
Instacart said retailers will continue to set their own prices on the delivery website, and may continue to offer different prices at different locations, but “going forward, Instacart will not support any services for testing item prices.”
Instacart said these services are not “ Dynamic pricing“, a system in which the price of something can go up when demand is high, nor “surveillance pricing,” where prices can be set based on a user’s income, shopping history or other personal information. Instead, the company said it offered it to customers at random.
Some customers may simply see a slightly higher price for an item, while others may see a slightly lower price. For example, an experiment conducted by Consumer Reports and two progressive advocacy groups found that Instacart customers saw one of five different prices for the same 10 Lucerne eggs from a Safeway store in Washington, D.C.: $3.99, $4.28, $4.59, $4.69, or $4.79.
Instacart has been offering its price testing service to retailers since 2023. The company declined to say how many customers may have been affected, but it will end the service immediately.
And last week, in a separate case. Instacart agreed to pay $60 million In recoveries to customers to settle federal allegations of deceptive practices. The FTC accused Instacart of falsely advertising free deliveries and not clearly disclosing service fees, which add up to 15% of the order and must be paid to customers.
Instacart has denied the FTC’s allegations of wrongdoing and said it reached a settlement in order to move forward and focus on its business.
“Trust is earned through clarity and consistency,” Instacart said in its blog post Monday. “Customers should never guess the prices they see.”