“I love my job. I don't feel like I'm going to work in the morning; it's just a hobby,” Karin de Ron says now that she’s switched from a decade as a school nurse to running her own Dumpling grocery delivery business, Karin D Shops for Me. But it wasn’t so easy with a rocky start on Instacart.

“In the beginning, I really loved Instacart, but they made too many changes so I thought I cannot do this anymore. And I felt they were, and still think this is the case, that they’re abusing the people who work for them,” Karin says, “The way they pay and who gets what kinds of orders plus they don't pay attention to shoppers. Their thing is shoppers just have to get the groceries there. They don't mind how they get there and who delivers them, plus the customers don't respect shoppers either.”

Even though she started with Instacart in 2018 and shopped for 10 months, when Covid hit, Karin took a break and decided to start her Dumpling business, Karin D Shops for Me, in January 2022.

“I was like, ‘I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna put time in it.’ Started my social media, started handing out flyers and business cards, and I still do that about every two weeks,” she says. That also meant building up in-person marketing tools like a car sticker plus shirts and logos she designed on Canva so more people could recognize her and her brand.

“I will hand out business cards and I have people who know me now in Aldi and Publix and especially Walmart. I'm there every morning, so I hope to have my name out there to have more people know me,” says Karin.

Hitting the ground running with Dumpling, Karin worked worth-of-mouth referrals, sharp business cards, and current relationships to build her biz brick by brick. Going from being frustrated she couldn’t pick her clients or shops, or that clients couldn’t choose her on “unethical” Instacart to “Wow, can we have you shop every time?” with Dumpling, made leaps and bounds of difference in her life.

“You get what you get [with Instacart] plus the people don’t respect the shoppers, that’s another big thing where as long as they got their groceries, even if they said it was damaged or wasn’t delivered, they were always in the right,” Karin explains. She couldn’t build relationships with her preferred grocery delivery clients, and continually felt hindered by Instacart’s processes.

But when she partnered with Dumpling’s platform, operations felt fairer, clients could bond with her, and she felt like she had more quality opportunities for business growth. “I feel greatly appreciated by my clients who I bring groceries to, and the relationships I end up having with them are way more personal [than Instacart],” Karin explains. And when it comes to posts and client education about the switch, “[I try to show] all Instacart’s extra charges because I don’t think a lot of people realize them,” she adds.

Moving away from Instacart’s random orders that had her driving all over the city, Karin started to feel more connected within Dumpling and like she finally had help. “If I'm at a shop and the cart is over the card amount, Dumpling’s support is instant. If I have a question, it's answered very, very quickly, like on the Tuesday and Thursday coaching calls, there's so much stuff that I learn from them,” says Karin, “You feel like a human, not somebody who just drops everything off and keeps going.”

Every single coaching session with Dumpling she “gets something out of it, and there are so many knowledgeable people and everybody's so willing to share their knowledge; what they’ve done in the past, what worked for them,” she adds, “I feel like it's almost like a family, and I call it my Dumpling family; I like it a lot since there is no community with Instacart.”

The coaching calls and community also helped Karin have deeper knowledge of how to move her business forward including pricing. Currently, she’s set at $20 per order with a tip-if-they-want policy. “The tip is great and most people do tip, but I know I have a couple of customers that cannot afford to tip a lot so I have myself well protected at this point where I'm good with the pricing,” Karin explains.

Fewer yet bigger orders with Dumpling doesn’t mean she’s making less either; she’s making more than with Instacart. And with the growth potential of her Dumpling business, and choice of clients and shops, Karin feels like she has the opportunity to grow her income and be more compensated for her time and effort.

“Since I've set my own pricing, I feel that I am making more than what I was with Instacart…it's more money for shops,” says Karin, “Instacart can give you in-store shopping with 70 items and you can make $7 off that, or you can have a delivery and shop for $9.05…It will take you more than an hour to shop, you have to drive, so you're making $9.05 an hour and still have to pay for gas and insurance.”

Shopping anywhere accepting a credit card, she works Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Publix and Walmart, and is hoping to “wiggle into” helping the large amount of local horse and equine customers.

“[With Dumpling], I feel the customer appreciates me. I have more personal relationships with my customers and I see them every week; I love the personal relationships,” Karin says, “Since I am finding my own customers, I also feel safer in a way because since I pick them, I have never had a surprise.”

Not only do her clients truly adore her service, but they also love the switch to Dumpling’s app that Karin uses daily to grow her business. “I love the app and I love how it works…it's a well-functioning app in my opinion,” she says, “Dumpling’s a great platform and it's a small team, but it's amazing what they’ve done so far, and how welcoming and helpful they’ve been.”

Even though during her early Dumpling days Karin says she was “very impatient” with her goals for expansion, she’s now proud of how far she’s come. “It took me a while to realize that it's not overnight, that was kind of hard for me, but so far I've been very happy with the amount of business I’ve accumulated [with Dumpling],” she says.

If you’re a shopper who’s considering creating a Dumpling business, it may be wise to follow Karin’s sage advice: be polite, respectful, and diligent. “And have patience; it doesn’t happen overnight…When I was doing Instacart, I did a lot of smaller orders so I had more than I have now, but I would make less,” Karin explains, “My orders are bigger now so I feel I can make the same amount of money in a shorter timeframe [with Dumpling]…And because I can make my own schedule, I know where I'm going, I can combine shops, I can drop off, and it's just more efficient.”

Originally Published 12/22/2022