Overview
- Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union coordinated tests with 437 volunteers in four cities and found that nearly 75% of items carried multiple prices in the Instacart app, sometimes up to five for the same product from the same store.
- Researchers measured item-level gaps as high as 23% and about a 7% swing in basket totals, estimating a typical household could see roughly $1,200 a year in cost differences.
- The variability was traced to Eversight, an AI pricing tool Instacart acquired in 2022, with testing observed at Safeway and Target and additional evidence at Costco, Kroger, Albertsons and Sprouts.
- Instacart says only about 10 retail partners that already apply markups used limited, short-term randomized tests, which it characterizes as not dynamic pricing and not based on personal or demographic data.
- Target said it is not responsible for prices on Instacart, and the report has spurred policy action including New York’s new algorithmic pricing disclosure law and a federal bill proposed by Sen. Ruben Gallego to curb individualized pricing.