A collaborative investigation has revealed that Instacart has been conducting pricing experiments that resulted in different users seeing different prices for identical grocery items from the same store. The study, conducted by Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative, and More Perfect Union, enrolled 437 shoppers across four cities. Each participant added the same items to their Instacart cart from the exact same store location. The findings were significant. Nearly 75 percent of the grocery items in the test were displayed at multiple price points to different users. For some items, as many as five different prices were observed. On average, the gap between the highest and lowest price shown for a single item was 13 percent. The largest single discrepancy was a 23 percent difference on one particular product. In response to inquiries, Instacart stated these were limited tests conducted with a small subset of only 10 retail partners. The company explained that these retailers, which already apply their own markups to items on the platform, use these short-term, randomized tests to understand consumer preferences and learn how to keep essential items affordable. An Instacart spokesperson emphasized this is not dynamic pricing, which typically fluctuates based on immediate supply and demand, and asserted that no personal demographic data is used in the process, calling the experiments random. The bulk of the testing was observed at Safeway and Target stores, with both chains showing similar patterns of price variation. A Target spokesperson clarified that the company is not affiliated with Instacart and is not responsible for the prices set on the Instacart platform. Instacart told other outlets that at the time of the study, it was evaluating different approaches to cover platform costs but has since discontinued these specific pricing tests on Target orders. Following the report, Instacart published a blog post addressing the issue. The post framed the tests as a tool to help retailers invest in lower prices overall and reiterated the company’s commitment to grocery affordability for consumers. The article positions the pricing experiments as a standard retail practice, now applied in an online environment, aimed at long-term consumer benefit rather than short-term algorithmic manipulation.
