You are a PM at Instacart. How would you define and measure success for the Shopper (personal shopper) experience?

Clarifying Assumptions

• Instacart Shoppers are independent contractors who shop grocery orders in-store and deliver to consumers. This role is fundamentally different from DoorDash Dashers — shoppers must navigate a store, select items, handle substitutions, and manage perishable goods.
• The Shopper experience is the critical quality layer between customer order and customer satisfaction. Unlike a restaurant delivery where the restaurant prepares the food, Instacart Shoppers ARE the fulfillment.
• Primary lifecycle stage: mature, competitive market with Shipt, Walmart+ Delivery, and Amazon Fresh as direct competitors for shopper labor.

Framework Structure

Product Context → Goals & Lifecycle → Ecosystem → User Journey + Metrics Funnel → North Star Metric → Counter Metrics.

Product Context

What makes Shopper experience unique

Instacart Shoppers face a challenge unique in gig work: they must make real-time substitution decisions on behalf of a customer who is not present. If a product is out of stock (which happens for ~15-20% of items), the Shopper must either: find a suitable substitute, or report unavailability. A good substitute decision = customer delighted. A bad one = 1-star rating, refund request, and customer churn.

Why Shopper satisfaction drives everything

A well-supported, fairly-paid Shopper produces: (1) higher item pick accuracy, (2) better substitution decisions, (3) faster shop times. All three directly determine customer satisfaction and order refund rates. Shopper NPS and consumer NPS are strongly correlated.

Goals

Lifecycle stage: Mature growth — Instacart is not growing its Shopper base as aggressively as it is optimizing their performance and retention.

Business objective: Maximize order quality (pick accuracy + substitution quality + on-time delivery) while maintaining a Shopper cost structure that supports healthy unit economics.

User Journey & Metrics Funnel

Step 1: Shopper accepts a batch

App surfaces an order batch with store location, estimated items, and estimated pay.

Metric: Batch acceptance rate — % of offered batches that Shoppers accept. Low rate = pay mismatch or store/route quality issue.

Step 2: Shopper arrives at store

Shopper navigates to the store using the app.

Metric: Time to store arrival — from batch acceptance to store check-in.

Step 3: Shopper picks items

Shopper navigates the store aisle-by-aisle, scanning items as they pick.

Metric: Item pick accuracy rate — % of items found and picked correctly vs. total items in order. Target: >95%.

Step 4: Shopper handles out-of-stock

Shopper finds an item unavailable. App surfaces substitution suggestions based on customer's preferences and purchase history.

Metric: Substitution acceptance rate — % of Shopper-initiated substitutions that customers accept vs. reject. Target: >80% acceptance.

Step 5: Shopper checks out

Shopper completes in-store purchase on Instacart card.

Metric: Checkout time — minutes from last item scan to checkout completion.

Step 6: Shopper delivers

Shopper navigates to customer delivery address.

Metric: On-time delivery rate — % of deliveries that arrive within the promised delivery window.

Step 7: Shopper earns and receives rating

Customer rates the Shopper. Shopper sees earnings.

Metric: Shopper 5-star rating rate and earnings per batch hour.

North Star Metric

Chosen NSM: Perfect order rate — % of orders where all items were correctly picked or substituted (with customer approval), delivered on time, and rated ≥4 stars by the customer.

This metric captures: pick accuracy, substitution quality, delivery timeliness, and customer satisfaction in a single number. A Shopper who delivers a perfect order is performing at the highest quality level. Perfect order rate drives: lower refund costs, higher customer LTV, and higher Shopper ratings (which drives their continued engagement).

Supporting Shopper-side metrics:

• Earnings per active batch hour — Shopper satisfaction and retention predictor
• Shopper 7-day retention rate — supply stability
• Substitution hit rate — % of substitutions accepted by customer (quality of Shopper judgment)
• In-store navigation efficiency — time per item picked (measures app routing quality)

Counter Metrics

• Shopper overpay rate: If we increase Perfect Order Rate by routing only the easiest orders to Shoppers, we may overpay for an artificially inflated metric. Ensure order difficulty distribution remains consistent.
• Consumer-requested refund rate: Should decline as Perfect Order Rate rises — validates the metric is capturing real quality.
• Store relationship health: Instacart Shoppers in stores are guests — high volumes of frustrated Shoppers can damage retailer relationships. Monitor store manager NPS.