A woman who ordered groceries via Instacart went back to the store to find the numerous items that her male shopper claimed were “unavailable.” Her video adds to an ongoing trope about men being terrible Instacart shoppers.
TikToker Adrielle Sigler (@veganrizz) starts her video from the store parking lot. She explains that she spent spent $145 getting groceries through Instacart, but says her shopper “could not fid like 12 of the items.” The Instacart customer adds that she decided to prove that shopper wrong in a video that received more than 601,000 views.
After explaining her mission of trying to find all the “missing” items, she sets out with her shopping cart.
@veganrizz Replying to @Adrielle Sigler #greenscreen #adriellecsigler #adriellevegan #adriellecherrie #adriellecherriesigler #adrielle #adrielleisvegan #adriellesiglervegan #adrielliverse #adriellesigler #veganrizz #adriellesigler #adriellevlog #adriellethoughts #adriellecreator #adriellesiglercreator #adriellesiglervlog #stressed #angrycustomer #instacartfail #instacart #ripoff ♬ Quirky Suspenseful Indie-Comedy(1115050) – Kenji Ueda
The blackberries on her list? Clearly available, and in several different sizes of containers. The Cheez-Its? Not the originals she wanted, but two other perfectly acceptable substitutes right there. The Peanut Butter Banana Clif Bars? She was able to pick out the three that she wanted. She’s also able to find almond milk, lemonade, and a package of plant-based chicken wings she requested in her online order.
The shopper goes through the rest of her list, finding every one of the items that her Instacart shopper claimed were “unavailable.” She even notes for a bottle of sweet chili sauce, “I know it’s in stock but I genuinely don’t feel like walking across the store. But … I want to prove my point. I’ll walk across the store and find it.”
The experience, Adrielle says, put her off of online delivery services altogether.
“I don’t think I’ve been this triggered in a long time,” she observes. “Unless it’s an absolute emergency, and I am debilitated and I need Tylenol and tampons or something, I am never using an app like Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats, or GrubHub again in my life.”
“It’s really frustrating when you pay a service fee, you tip, and pay for groceries with the priority pay option, you fall for all that, to [have to] drive to the grocery store after a funeral and find all of the “unavailable” items the shopper couldn’t shop for.”
Viewers resonated with the post, especially when they heard that the shopper was male.
For at least one person, the video confirmed their suspicions about male shoppers. “The minute you said ‘he could not find,’ we already knew.”
“This happens all the time when I have a male shopper especially when it’s feminine items,” agreed another.
However, a number of viewers were more sympathetic towards the Instacart shopper and cast their suspicions on Adrielle’s claims.
“Few things to unpack here as a instacart shopper,” one person wrote in a lengthy comment, with the first point being, “If there is more then one of the same store in or near your area, some times it sends us to the other stores so one store can be completely wiped out of everything you want while the other store has it all. we don’t choose what store to go to, it tells us which store to go to. like where I’m at we have 3 krogers and one store is always out of stuff and I’m always sent to that one.”
The person added, “When they mark something as gone they have to send you picture proof of the empty shelf with the price tag proving the product is gone.”
Addrielle noted in her response, “1) this is the only Wegmans within an hour of our city 2) I found the items at 10pm he was shopping at 7pm.”
The commenter replied, “I been to a krogers over and hour and half away from the person that ordered it so it could have happened.” They also followed up with the question, “And did they send you pics of empty shelves,” although a few responders claimed that Instacart has no such practice for when items are out of stock.
Someone else noted, “I’ve been a shopper and sometimes they’re genuinely out when you’re shopping and then restock before your next batch. I double take every time like Bruh that was NOT there 30 mins ago.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to the creator via TikTok comment and to Instacart via email.