Instacart's profitability relies in part on batching orders together — something that its gig workers hate

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A man wearing a face mask and sunglasses backwards on his head looks at a receipt while standing in front of a shopping cart at a Giant grocery store in Washington DC in 2020.
Instacart has gotten its shoppers to deliver more orders at a time for the same or less pay over the last few years.

Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

It's the return of the tech IPO. Instacart says it's profitable — and this may be the necessary secret ingredient for a hot market debut in 2023.

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Instacart CEO Fidji Simo on a yellow background
Fidji Simo from France is the new CEO of Instacart.

Instacart; Melia Russell/Insider; Samantha Lee/Insider

Instacart just filed for its IPO and revealed a plan to sell $175 million in stock to PepsiCo

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instacart shopper
Instacart filed a prospectus, a document outlining its business and planned IPO, on Friday afternoon.

Photo by Nick Otto for the Washington Post/Getty Images

Some Instacart customers are losing hundreds of dollars to scammers after connecting bank accounts or Paypal to the app

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A woman with red hair puts a box of Wheat Thins in a brown paper grocery bag sitting in a cart at a Safeway grocery store in early 2020.
Some Instacart users are reportedly out hundreds of dollars after placing orders on the grocery delivery app that never arrived.

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Instacart is going public. For real, this time.

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An Instacart shopper at a ShopRite store in New Jersey
Instacart is reportedly targeting an IPO as soon as September. It's not the first time the grocery delivery company has tried to go public.

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

Gig workers are tracking customers who reduce tips after delivery by marking their homes on Google Maps

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Instacart delivery
Workers for Instacart and other gig services are tracking which houses tip bait, including by marking offending addresses on Google Maps.

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An Instacart customer said she discovered the app's higher prices cost her nearly $100 after accidentally seeing the store's paper receipt

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A male Instacart shopper wearing black jacket with the white Adidas stripes on the sleeves pushes a shopping cart with bags of groceries from Ralph's while wearing a surgical mask in a parking lot.
Instacart shoppers aren't allowed to give customers the paper receipt from their trip the store when they deliver groceries and other goods for the service.

Dania Maxwell/LA Times via Getty Images

Tipping 'nudges' are now popping up on DoorDash. If you don't leave a gratuity, you'll hear about it.

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DoorDash drivers hope to earn more tips with the app's new post-checkout tipping feature
DoorDash is the latest delivery service to nudge customers who don't tip the worker who delivers their food.

DoorDash

New DoorDash customers are turning to the app for grocery deliveries and flowers, not just restaurant meals

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DoorDash grocery
DoorDash started delivering convenience-store goods and groceries in 2020.

DoorDash

Instacart shoppers say the highest-earning orders are getting more extreme, with demands like 72-mile drives

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Instacart
Instacart shoppers say high-earning batches from Instacart have become big tasks, asking them to shop and deliver hundreds of products to a customer over an hour away.

Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

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