What Is A Good Seconds Per Item Instacart? Complete Answer

What Is A Good Seconds Per Item Instacart? – Several new Instacart shoppers get worried over their speed, they want to complete orders with less time.

Yes, the faster you complete an order, the more you receive new batches and that’s more money for you. Sometimes, shoppers get delayed due to replacements, for those who prioritize customers’ satisfaction over speed.

That being said, many customers love shoppers that can shop and deliver orders fast, no one loves a slow shopper. Even for shoppers trying to deliver Instacart 2 full service orders, you are expected to shop and delivery batches on time. This is surely why the question What Is A Good Seconds Per Item Instacart? has been asked recently.

As an Instacart shopper, you must understand that what keeps you working is a good customer rating, you can always tweak your working ethics to match the demand of any customers.

With that in mind, striving to reduce the total time used in shopping is essential to you becoming a favorite to retailers.

So, What Is A Good Seconds Per Item Instacart? The estimated time for each item is 30 seconds, this is as estimate by Instacart, but is this a good seconds per item? Well, read this article to see what we were able to find out after carrying a little research on what is a good seconds per item Instacart.

What Is A Good Seconds Per Item Instacart?

The average seconds an Instacart shopper should spend finding and picking an item in the store should be 30 seconds. Although, this is not a rule, working hard to reduce the total time you spend shopping items should be a necessary task.

If you can use not more than 30 seconds for each item, you can complete a 12 items order within 6 to 7 minutes at most before heading to delivery.

However, no matter how fast a shopper may be, there are several factors that may cause delays and ultimately extend the amount of time spent shopping and delivering.

Almost every shopper would want to fulfil orders very fast so they can both satisfy customers and keep getting new batches. But do speed really matter at Instacart? More on this as you keep reading this article.

What Will Delay An Instacart Shopper From Ordering And Delivering Fast?

There are few factors that will delay an Instacart shopper from shopping and delivering orders fast. Read some of the factors below;

• Replacements: Shoppers do get delayed as a result of trying to find good replacements for customers in situations where they can’t get what they wanted at first. Instacart has a feature that allows customers to give replacement option in case an item isn’t available, this is one of the things that delay shoppers because most of them prefer informing the customer first before picking the replacement item.
• Distance Between Store and Customer: The distance between the customer and store locations will greatly affect how soon a shopper will get the order delivered. Of course you’ll agree that orders from customers quite close to the store will get delivered faster than to customers living a little bit far.
• Order Size: The size of the order play a big role in determining how fast an order will be delivered. An order with just 4 items will get completed faster than an order with more items.
• Items Availability: Many times, items in the order and even their replacements are not available, a shopper has to communicate with the customer to inform them of the unavailability, this consumes time and will affect the total spent on the order.
• Shopper’s Familiarity With Store: A shopper will be faster when shopping at a store he or she is quite familiar with, they literally know where almost every item is located in the store. A shopper that is unfamiliar with a store will always have a hard time locating items, they’ll definitely spend more time looking for each item.

How Can I Improve My Total Seconds Per Item On Instacart?

One of the best ways you can improve your ordering speed is to pick one physical store that is big enough and gets lots of batches, try as much as possible to always shop there, you’ll get familiar with the store and know where items are located. Getting familiar with a store gives you a lot of advantage and you’ll spend less time on each order.

Once you are familiar with the store, always go through the order list to also get familiar with what is on the list, this will help you to map out your route.

Also, communicate actively with the customer while shopping, this will hasten any replacement and prevent you from spending more time trying to figure out what replacement to pick, getting your customer along during the whole process helps you to get a good customer rating, customers love being carried along.

If you are concerned about your overall speed and want to increase it, you should always consider accepting orders that are closer to the store, and orders with few items on the list.

Is Speed Very Important At Instacart?

As far as Instacart is concerned, completing orders on time is good but not as important as accuracy. As a matter of fact, no one gets deactivated for not having a good speed, you ain’t even going to get penalised or cautioned.

However, too much delay may lead to a bad customer rating which may indirectly result in account deactivation.

So, while making efforts to complete orders promptly, ensure that you shop for items accurately and make no mistake, any mistake may translate to a bad customer review which isn’t good for your account.

Instacart are very quick to deactivate accounts with bad customer review, do everything possible to avoid this. Even when you get delayed, communicate with the customer, be polite and professional.

How To Find Instacart Speed Leaderboard

The Instacart speed leaderboard contains a list of all the shoppers in your zone and ranks them based on their speed.

Although, this is of no effect as it has no impact on your account, it is literally aimed at letting shoppers to know the total number of shoppers in their zones and probably encourage them to try shopping and delivering orders fast.

To locate the Instacart speed leaderboard, simply open the Instacart shopper app and navigate to the ‘How Am I Doing’ tab, there you’ll see your rank in the speed leaderboard.

Apart from your rank, you will also see other shoppers in your zone and how they all rank. Shoppers don’t really care so much about the Instacart speed leaderboard because it has no impact on ratings, it’s basically there to boost your morale and help you boost your speed.

How Can I Get Good Customer Ratings On Instacart?

To get good customer ratings, you must ensure that you shop customers’ items accurately, customers are more concerned on accuracy, customers care a lot about their replacements and getting exactly what they paid for or want to get.

If you want customers to continuously give you good ratings, be accurate. Ensure constant communication with your customers while shopping for their items, inspect items you’ve picked and ensure they are scanned correctly.

Research has shown that shoppers who shop and deliver orders accurately without errors get positive customers ratings, this is why you should always go for accuracy instead of speed.

As long as you maintain a good level of communication with your customers while shopping for their orders, you won’t need to worry over speed, this is because your customers will also be aware of what you are currently doing and it gives them assurance that you are making efforts to deliver what they ordered, they won’t care how long you take.

Instacart Speed Bonus, Is There Any?

No, Instacart doesn’t give any bonus to shoppers for speed. Although, there is a feature that displays shoppers’ speed, the company would prefer a shopper that shops and delivers accurately over a shopper that delivers quickly.

Lots of folks have been trying to cheat the Instacart system just to reduce their total shopping and delivery time, this isn’t necessary since there is really no bonus or extra incentives for this.

As a shopper, there are certain things you can do to increase your efficiency, read the next paragraph to learn a few of these things.

How To Increase Efficiency As An Instacart Shopper

There are several things you should start doing to increase your efficiency as an Instacart shopper. One point you shouldn’t miss is that you’ll get more efficient as you keep working and putting efforts to improve on your services.

• Shop at familiar stores: shopping for orders regularly at a familiar stores is one of the best ways to improve your efficiency. Once you are familiar with a particular store, you get to know where several items are located. Once you get the order and grab a cart, you won’t have to waste so much time searching for items, you’ll just go and grab them.
• Maintain good communication with customers: different customers behave differently, you’ll get to understand customers’ behavior if you get used to maintaining good communications with customers while shopping for their items.
• Make offer to refund: this is another great way to boost your efficiency, offer to refund items on the spot if a customer isn’t okay with a substituted item.
• Get to know your area well: understand and get familiar with the surroundings and the staff working at the store. Always be around the parking lots of stores you want to shop at, this helps to put you on alert.
• Bag veggies only while waiting in line: don’t rush to pick up veggies first, this should be when you are waiting in line.
• Ensure your phone is always on: never allow your phone to go off, go with a power bank if you must and also ensure you’ve enabled your location. Shoppers are tracked and assigned orders by Instacart via location.
• Scan each item’s bar code as you shop: this is a good way to keep your customers updated on your progress, scan each item’s bar code as you pick them.
• Only swipe ‘start shopping’ when you are in the store.

Fastest Instacart Shopper, How To See It

To find the fastest Instacart shopper in your zone, you need to check the Instacart speed leaderboard for the shopper that tops the list.

Like we explained before, the Instacart speed leaderboard contains all the shoppers in a particular zone and ranks them based on their speed. You can always access the Instacart speed leaderboard via the ‘How Am I Doing’ tab.

So, What Is A Good Seconds Per Item Instacart? On the average, a shopper should use around 30 seconds per item. This isn’t really a law and using more than 30 seconds won’t get you deactivated or earn you bad customer ratings, you should be more focused on accurately shopping customers’ orders and delivery efficiently without errors.

We’ve also written a comprehensive article on; How To Make A Second Instacart Account. If you are currently lodging in a hotel or planning to go on vacation, you may need to read; Will Instacart Deliver To A Hotel?