Will the shopper actually carry groceries up to my apartment door?

Most will, once they can get through the front door. The hold-up is almost never willingness, it is access. If the shopper is buzzed into the building they will typically bring the order to your unit, especially if your delivery notes name the floor and unit. A clear note plus a working way in is what gets the bags to your door instead of the lobby.

Can I get groceries delivered without answering the buzzer every time?

Yes. You can put a 4-digit passcode in your delivery notes for the shopper to enter at the panel, or set a recurring access window for a standing order so the shopper is buzzed in automatically during that time and the window expires on its own. Either way you are not jumping up to answer a call mid-task every single week.

Is it against building rules to give a delivery driver my entry code?

Some buildings prohibit sharing the common-door code, and a shared static code is also a minor security trade-off since it doesn't expire. Check your lease or ask management. If sharing the permanent code isn't allowed or feels risky, a buzzer that reaches your phone or a scheduled access window keeps the code private.

Blog / How To Buzz In Instacart Grocery Delivery to an Apartment

How To Buzz In Instacart Grocery Delivery to an Apartment

By Ty · 2026-03-28

The shopper texts that your order has arrived, and the bags are already sitting in the lobby, four floors down, where anyone walking through the building can help themselves. A grocery order is an easy target: several bags of food left by the mailboxes or the front door while you wait on the elevator, and by the time you get down there a bag or two can be gone, with no way to know who took them.

The fix is not a better hiding spot in the lobby. It is getting the shopper through the front door so they bring the groceries all the way up to your apartment, where they are not left unattended for anyone to grab.

How to fix it

The goal is to let the shopper into the building so they can come up to your floor instead of stopping at the lobby. Here is how the common options compare:

Option	Pros	Cons
Be home to buzz them in	Free, works on any panel	Ties you to the delivery window, and you still answer the buzzer live
Permanent lobby door code	Shopper walks in and comes up	Many buildings ban sharing it; a static code never expires
Meet them in the lobby	Always works	You go down and help carry; defeats the point of delivery
Lowkey	Auto-buzzes the shopper in so they bring bags to your door, works from anywhere	Quick one-time setup with your building

A few things help no matter which option you pick: save the buzzer’s calling number as a contact so Do Not Disturb and spam filters do not silence it, and write notes a stranger can follow in ten seconds, the exact unit number to dial, that dialing it rings your phone, the floor and which way to turn, and a fallback text number.

If the buzzer never rings at all, the building side may be broken; see why an apartment buzzer stops working.

Where Lowkey helps

Lowkey is the cleanest way to get groceries carried all the way up to your apartment door. It takes your buzzer call on your phone and opens the building’s front door for the shopper, so instead of leaving bags in the lobby they come up to your floor and drop the order at your unit. You can answer from anywhere, or skip answering entirely with a 4-digit passcode in your delivery notes or a recurring schedule for that standing Saturday-morning order, which auto-expires after the window.

It is software with nothing to install and no hardware on the wall. You give your building manager a virtual number to program for your unit, and from then on every shopper can be buzzed in automatically. An activity history shows when each delivery got in, push notifications tell you the moment the shopper arrives, and it all runs on 99.99% uptime. A 14-day free trial lets you try it on your own panel first.