Instacart to end all item price tests on platform

In a blog post, the company said, “Over the past couple weeks, there’s been a lot written about Instacart (CART) and how pricing works on our platform. Some of that coverage raised fair questions. Much of it included misconceptions and misinformation about what we do – and don’t do – when it comes to prices. But here’s one fact we want to be clear about: Our customers have high expectations for Instacart. And for some, we fell short of those expectations. We’ve listened carefully to feedback from our customers. And we understand that the tests we ran with a small number of retail partners that resulted in different prices for the same item at the same store missed the mark for some customers. At a time when families are working exceptionally hard to stretch every grocery dollar, those tests raised concerns, leaving some people questioning the prices they see on Instacart. That’s not okay – especially for a company built on trust, transparency, and affordability. That’s why, effective immediately, Instacart is ending all item price tests on our platform. Retailers will no longer be able to use Eversight technology to run item price tests on Instacart. Here’s what that means for our customers. Now, if two families are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they see the same prices – period. Retail partners will continue to set their own prices on Instacart, just as they always have. And just as retailers set different prices for items in their different brick-and-mortar store locations, retail partners may choose to vary the price of items on a store-by-store basis on Instacart, as well. But from now on, Instacart will not support any item price testing services.”