10 Items or Less: Starting Early

The Instacart community is as diverse as the items in the grocery store — every day, tens of thousands of individuals shop, deliver, and become an extension of people’s households. We want to share this community’s stories, highlighting Instacart shoppers, shift leads, and site managers all across North America. 10 Items or Less is a series featuring just some of the amazing members of the Instacart community, sharing their unique experiences and secret sauce with the world.

1. What’s your name and where are you from? I’m Marcus, from the Bronx, New York.
2. How long have you been shopping with Instacart, and in what roles? I’ve been shopping for about 10 months — I started on my 18th birthday.
3. When and why did you decide to start shopping with Instacart? I was intrigued by the idea of providing people with access to their groceries who may not otherwise be able to get them.
4. What’s your favorite thing about shopping with Instacart? My favorite thing about Instacart has to be the flexibility of the schedule. It’s great to have the ability to be able to start working at any time of the day.
5. What 3 items are always in your personal shopping cart? Monster energy drinks, PopCorners kettle corn, and oat milk.
6. What’s a fun fact that would surprise us about you? In eighth grade I got to play Aladdin in the musical Aladdin. It was my first ever musical.
7. What’s a shopping tip that a lot of people might not know (your “secret sauce”)? Get out early and start around 8am. In my experience you can earn more right when the supermarkets open. When you’re first starting off, go to supermarkets that you’re more familiar with. For me here in New York, I’ve found ShopRite, Stop and Shop, and ACME are the smoothest, because they list all the aisles in the Shopper app.
8. What’s your most-used Instacart emoji? 🥕
9. What’s your “side dish” — a hobby, a hidden talent, another job you do on the side? When I’m not doing Instacart, I’m a photographer and host photoshoots.
10. What’s one piece of guidance or encouragement you would give to the shopper community? Don’t be afraid or anxious of big orders — accept the challenge, and they can be really lucrative. I love the work I do.

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Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.