Since it's implementation at Costco, shoppers for Instacart have been banned from using the self-checkout lane at Costco for their orders. Self-checkout is not only the future, but used already in most grocery stores by Instacart shoppers on a daily basis, and Sam's Club, similar to Costco, allows it fluidly.

There are rumors about the reason why shoppers are banned, and this is supposedly Instacart's end. Some claim it has to do with "stealing" or Costco's "revenue system" but no word from either company as responded when I emailed them a few times. I also asked the attendants in Costco locations in real life about it, and they gave unclear answers so we don't know the reason why. The emails were also no help.

As far as I heard, some shoppers used self-checkout for Costco and went through with no problem. These shoppers stated it read fine, went through the process easily, and although they did stealthily, it is usable and none of those problems have ever been reported to occur.

I know a Costco executive who was aware of the fairly new process of self-checkout and had access to the records. When I told him about these shoppers who were using it, he explicitly stated he didn't know they were Instacart shoppers until I told him, and he went back to the records and didn't notice a difference.

Either way, time is money, and self-checkout is a fixture of the store which shoppers for Instacart should have the same rights. I noticed recently, as in a few years ago, there were shoppers complaining about it on r/InstacartShoppers in addition to official news sources, some of which were in 2023.

By signing, this may bring light to this issue and hopefully, we can get Instacart shoppers to be more efficient, and get treated better. Making Instacart a more reliable source of income.