Grocery Delivery Services as a Solution to Shopping
When food delivery services were new, I did some work on the Doordash & UberEats platforms in Toronto, but it was only ever casually and mostly as an excuse to hang out with a friend. We hoped we could earn enough money to buy video games to play together. It turned out these apps weren't great for making money, and we barely made enough to cover expenses. Usually, we'd make just enough to pay for gas and to have a cheap meal.
I recently identified that in-store grocery shopping was leading to autistic meltdowns. I’ve always hated grocery shopping, but I didn’t have a good understanding of why—only that it made me anxious and uncomfortable. After my diagnosis, I gained the insight to why I might be overstimulated in grocery stores and was able to go, as long as I was wearing my noise-cancelling headphones. I learned that I still needed to be efficient—get in and out as quick as possible. But it was still taking a toll on my mental state, so this led me to further research. This research is what brought me to Instacart.
I actually started delivering for Instacart before I used it as a service—I wanted to take the opportunity to learn about Instacart from the shopper’s perspective before using it as a customer, so I spent a few weeks doing grocery deliveries in the summer of 2024. Surprisingly, going to Costco as an Instacart shopper was a very different experience than going for myself. I was able to focus on my tasks and get out of the store with limited suffering. It wasn't enjoyable per se; this was just to get an idea of how the app worked.
I’ve compared the mental health impact of both options: ordering Instacart versus shopping myself, and have found that I have noticeably more energy when I don’t subject myself to the bright lights, annoying music, and dodging of shopping carts in narrow aisles and blind corners. The convenience is valuable when I can enjoy my hobbies while waiting for groceries, or, even better, have the groceries delivered before I get home from work, having my kids to put them away for me. One time, they put the potatoes in the fridge.. we learned something that day.
When I was driving for Instacart, customers could input a tip when placing their order. The app would suggest a very small amount—usually $3 or $4—and this highlights why I like to do the work before I use the service. I would scrutinize a $3 tip order much more than a $15 tip order, because the large tip orders would tend to get grabbed up by other shoppers, leaving little time to analyse them. Knowing this, when I placed orders, I would offer a larger tip up front in an attempt to entice shoppers to prioritize my order.
But this has been about how I use Instacart, and not why I use Instacart. I did touch on the fact that it’s related to anxiety and meltdowns, but I’d like to take some time to expand on that.
I regularly suffer from both autistic meltdowns and shutdowns. During a shutdown, I lose the ability to speak (become nonverbal) and begin to dissociate. My meltdowns can vary in severity—but it usually means speaking at two to three times my normal cadence, walking in circles, and repetitive stimming. In the past, when I was unable to properly identify triggers, a meltdown could escalate into screaming, kicking, and thrashing about on the floor. If I wasn’t able to remove myself from the source of growing anxiety—and this most often happened at work—I could end up at the hospital. This happened many times in my early 20s.
By removing grocery shopping from my routine, I’ve been able to take more time for myself—something I have severely lacked in recent years as my kids get older and my work days get longer. I’ve been able to finally start building a schedule for streaming on Twitch, and I’m beginning to conceptualize videos for YouTube and TikTok again. I’ve captured some time each week to work on blog posts on the Ozblog, and have refined my video editing process to make the best use of my 2-hour commute—each way—to work.
The problem I have to acknowledge here is that grocery delivery services are not a viable solution for everyone who hates the supermarket. Only now do I actually earn enough money from my salary to pay the premium that this service costs. Even if I’d identified this five years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to afford Instacart.
So what are some alternatives to grocery delivery? If you’re in Canada, love it or hate it, Loblaw is one of the better options. I can order groceries from Superstore, pay a small fee for the pickup, show up in my car and get my groceries. I don’t even need to interact with the person if I’m having a bad day—just open the hatch and sit in my car and wait. Save on Foods offers a similar service, though where I live, theirs is more expensive and seems like more of an afterthought. You have to call to get them to come out, while Superstore you can do it all via text/email.
When I really need to go shopping in person, I find the best way to mitigate the risk is bring a safe person with me. I have my kids—and while they have a similar hate of supermarkets, they can be enticed with the promise of something from the bakery. I do need to pre-schedule with them, as I don’t like spontaneous trips, so how could I inflict that pain on them? But they are options when I can’t do it alone.
It would be really nice if grocery stores could do a toned-down hour, either at the start or the end of the day, where the lights are dimmed, the music is off, and only self-checkout is open. I’d shop at that supermarket all the time, even if it meant getting up at 6 AM.
