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Today's Featured News Instacart's Pricing Tests Spark Backlash... But Investors Didn't CareAuthor: Jordan Chussler. Article Published: 12/22/2025. 
Key Takeaways - Instacart’s AI-enabled price tests drew backlash and regulatory attention, but the company says the tests weren’t based on personal data.
- The FTC’s $60 million settlement is a significant blow to Instacart's trust, yet it doesn’t directly alter Instacart’s core demand drivers or unit economics.
- After a brief pullback, the stock rallied to within reach of where it was before the news broke as investors shook off the news and focused on the future.
America's favorite grocery ordering and delivery app came under pressure earlier this month after a consumer advocacy investigation raised concerns about its pricing practices and transparency. A joint investigation by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative published on Dec. 9 found that Maplebear (NASDAQ: CART), which does business as Instacart, ran pricing experiments that resulted in different customers seeing different prices for identical items — a practice Consumer Reports said does not meet the definition of surveillance pricing. A major force in the crypto world is quietly becoming one of gold's most aggressive buyers — and most investors have no idea it's happening.
A longtime gold analyst says profits from a leading stablecoin operation are being funneled into physical gold at a scale that could materially impact supply and demand. After a recent meeting with insiders, he began outlining what this trend could mean for gold prices and a small group of companies positioned to benefit. Read the full gold briefing here The scrutiny intensified days later when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Dec. 18 that it was levying a $60 million penalty against the company for "deceiving consumers with false advertising, failure to provide refunds and unlawful subscription enrollment processes" in an unrelated enforcement action. This year the stock has underperformed the market, as has much of the broader consumer staples sector. Since its year-to-date (YTD) low on Nov. 6, however, Instacart is up more than 31%. When news of the Consumer Reports investigation first broke, the stock pulled back nearly 6%. In the days that followed, shares had already retraced that drop and were roughly flat to up. Below is why investors largely shrugged off the controversy over Instacart's pricing experiments and why the FTC penalty didn't appear to dent shareholders' longer-term expectations. How Instacart's Pricing Tests Created Price Differences Instacart, the largest online grocery ordering and delivery app, serves roughly 14.9 million customers—up from 14.4 million in 2024—and has a shopper base of about 600,000. Like other companies leveraging AI for competitive advantage, Instacart has used short-term, randomized A/B pricing tests to assess aggregate consumer price sensitivity. The company says the AI model, implemented as early as 2022, supports short-term pricing experiments rather than real-time, demand-driven dynamic pricing. But the report found that "many U.S. shoppers who order grocery deliveries through Instacart are unknowingly part of widespread AI-enabled experiments that price identical products differently from one customer to the next." Those prices reportedly differed by as much as 23% per individual item between customers — a technique the company refers to as "smart rounding," according to an inadvertently released internal email. Consumer Reports also noted that Instacart had disclosed the existence of pricing experiments in corporate marketing and investor materials, even though shoppers were not informed they were participating. Instacart says its retail partners control base prices on the platform while Instacart provides the infrastructure used to run pricing tests. Why Investors Shrugged off the Bad News Instacart denied that it engages in surveillance pricing, saying it does not use — and does not permit partners to use — personal, demographic, or user-level behavioral data to set prices. Charging different prices to different customers is not illegal in the U.S., nor is it a novel business practice. While the line between dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing can be blurry, many companies adjust prices based on demand, location and other factors. For example, rideshare operators such as Uber (NYSE: UBER) and Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT) use dynamic — or surge — pricing during periods of high demand, adjusting fares for supply, demand, traffic, time of day and even weather. There are also the fundamentals to consider. Instacart's financials show the company was profitable before its Sept. 19, 2023 IPO and has averaged about 10.15% revenue growth over the last four quarters. Net cash from operating activities rose by nearly 88% over that period. From an earnings perspective, Instacart has beaten expectations in seven of the past eight quarters, missing revenue forecasts only twice in that span. Wall Street Remains Bullish on CART Industry analysis firm Grand View Research estimates the global online grocery market was worth more than $67 billion in 2024 and is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.8% from 2025 to 2033. If that forecast holds, the market could exceed $992 billion by the end of the period — and Instacart is well positioned within it. That outlook helps explain Wall Street's bullish stance. The 27 analysts covering CART have assigned a consensus Moderate Buy rating with an average 12-month price target roughly 14% above current levels. Institutional ownership stands above 63%, and institutional inflows totaled $3.73 billion over the past 12 months versus $1.4 billion in outflows. Short interest is about 6.58% of the float — roughly $537 million — down nearly 29% from the prior reporting period when it was $734 million.
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