How My Liquor Knowledge Makes Me Cash With Instacart [Total Wine, Sam’s Club Liquor, Costco Spirits, and More] [Sponsored]
What’s better than a delicious cocktail out with friends? A delicious cocktail you can make from home with your recently acquired bartending skills, honed by the pandemic and a crash course on bartending!
For many customers, getting a variety of alcohol delivered has become increasingly popular. With many cities still in various states of shutdown, bars at limited capacity, but more freedom to get together indoors in a vaccinated group or bubble, customers are capitalizing on the benefits of alcohol delivery!
That’s where our favorite delivery service, Instacart, comes in. If you know what you’re doing, having some liquor knowledge can make you a lot of cash, quickly.
This post is sponsored by Instacart but, as always, opinions are our own.
What to Know About Liquor Stores
First, a quick distinction between liquor stores and liquor/alcohol sales at grocery stores. In most states, liquor stores are places like:
- Total Wine
- Costco Spirits
- Sam’s Liquor Club
- BevMo
- And your local, regional liquor stores
Grocery store alcohol sections are typically one to two aisles of limited selections of almost everything: wine, beer, spirits, and canned ready to drink products, though the types of products permitted to be sold in grocery stores varies a lot by state!
Your Instacart batch will determine where you’re shopping, so if you get a request for Total Wine, for example, you’ll know you’re heading to a liquor store that is dedicated almost exclusively to alcohol products.
What Instacart Shoppers Say About Shopping at Liquor Stores
According to Instacart shoppers we’ve talked to, alcohol batches can be very lucrative! In general, alcohol batches are smaller than typical grocery orders. According to Steve L. in Dallas, he will take alcohol orders every day: “Two 1.75 liter bottles of Grey Goose with a 20% tip? Grab and go!”
Chris N. said alcohol orders pay well – if you know what you’re doing! Chris said he can accept an $80 order at a grocery store, which could take him an hour and a half to shop and deliver. Or he can take a “$45 order at Total Wine and shop and deliver in 30 minutes. In the end, that $45 could be better.” However, he said that alcohol shopping, particularly in the wine aisles, can be challenging, so it’s most lucrative if you have a basic knowledge of alcohol. All in all, Chris said “Instacart’s portion of pay between grocery and alcohol gives alcohol orders a slight edge” because alcohol orders tend to contain higher value items.
Once you’ve mastered alcohol shopping and learned the aisles at some of the popular liquor stores in your city, Steve said delivering alcohol with Instacart is one of the most fun things he ever did. Pre-pandemic, Steve said companies in Dallas had lots of alcohol orders (which he expects to come back after pandemic restrictions have lifted.) According to Steve, “when I carted a bunch of booze into a large office, I’d walk in rolling my cart and loudly announcing, ‘Okay, who’s in charge of happy hour?’”
Some Instacart shoppers we spoke to expressed hesitation with carding and delivering alcohol, but Steve in Dallas said approaching the situation with humor is the key to making it all go smoothly. As Steve shared, “You could lighten things up when asking people to get their ID. Cheeriness goes a long way, and with alcohol, the jokes are endless. People respond to it – many people naturally think about handing you extra cash when you hand them alcohol.”
What to Know About Liquor Before Accepting Liquor Store Requests
To make the most money and be successful at accepting and delivering liquor store orders, you’ll want to have an understanding of alcohol and the different types of alcohol. As Chris pointed out, the wine aisles at liquor stores in particular can trip people up, which he said (for those not familiar with different types of wine) can turn Instacart batches into losses vs. lucrative batches.
You don’t have to become a wine connoisseur to be successful – but you do need to understand that the Chardonnay will be in a different aisle than the Merlot. If you don’t know what that means, you might want to stick to grocery deliveries for the time being!
According to Steve in Dallas, it’s the differences in alcohol types that throws people off and makes them hesitant to accept liquor store orders. As Steve says:
“I’ve seen a lot of shoppers get bewildered because they’ll accept a batch from Total Wine and it’s three different kinds of champagne and/or sparkling wine (which is in a different section). When it gets hot… people order bunches of rosés – all with fancy French names. Choosing the correct bottles can be difficult … shoppers don’t like having to ask the store staff to get you what you need in boxes stored up on the tippy top shelves.
And then there’s the dreaded declined credit card transaction because on a shelf of Cabernets…. the customer orders a $19 bottle but you mistakenly grab the same vintage but labeled “Cru” that’s $70…..
However, as Steve and Chris both point out, if you take the time to learn the stores and the inventory, you’ll potentially be rewarded with well-paying orders.
How Knowing About Liquor Can Earn You More
If you know your Pinot Grigio from your Pinot Noir, your Absolut from your New Amsterdam, and can reliably find the separate sections for IPAs vs. Coors, you probably can navigate a liquor store pretty quickly and efficiently.
For example, at my local Total Wine, I know the reds and roses are up in the front of the store, while the cold beers and mixers are in the back and to the right. You could say I go there occasionally – and that would make me an excellent Instacart shopper for liquor store orders!
When it comes to getting the customer’s ID to validate the alcohol delivery, Instacart’s app makes it easy to quickly & contactlessly validate their ID so you can complete the order. Be professional and make sure you get the ID, but you don’t have to interrogate the customer when you make the delivery. After all, as Steve points out, most people are happy to see an alcohol delivery!
Are you ready to earn more shopping at your local liquor store with Instacart? Sign up here!
-Melissa @ RSG
