Costco asks Instacart shoppers to wait for orders offsite

Some Costco stores have started asking Instacart shoppers to wait for orders offsite, according to interviews with shoppers and a review of Reddit posts and discussions on the policy.

Instacart does not require shoppers to wait in a store’s parking lot to be eligible for an order, but it does tell its contractors that they have better odds of scoring an order or a batch of orders if they are close to a store.

Many Instacart shoppers used to be able to claim orders even when they were at home or miles away from the store. But competition for orders has increased, and as a result, many drivers pull into store parking lots and watch the app in hopes of scoring better orders.

Costco has not yet commented on the policy, and it is unclear how the company is monitoring its parking lots or enforcing the requirement.

Unlike other big-box stores such as Walmart and Target, Costco has invested comparatively little in simplifying the fulfillment of e-commerce orders. Costco only began experimenting with curbside pickup at a few stores in early 2021.