I like to think of myself as technologically savvy, but I have been pretty slow to jump on the online purchasing bandwagon. There have been a couple of reasons for this and the main two have been that I like to actually touch and/or try out a product before I buy it, and the fact that I don’t like some of the employment practices of the larger companies that almost have monopolies in the online space.
My partner and I are pretty good about minimizing the time and effort spent putting food on our table to feed our family. We meal plan most weeks in advance and generate a shopping list, which definitely saves us a lot of time during the week. We usually select meals that are quick and easy to prepare and have recently increased our use of the Instant Pot (a hybrid slow cooker and pressure cooker) which saves us a lot of time.
A while ago, one of the large grocery store chains in our area started offering its customers the option of ordering their groceries online, having a store employee pick out and pack the items, and then bring them out to your car at a pre-selected pick-up time. In some ways I am ridiculously frugal, so the $3-5 cost associated with this service struck me as silly, due to the fact that I can shop for groceries in person in the store for free. We recently realized that a competing store offers the same service, but it is free of charge if you spend $50 or more. Thus began our foray into online grocery shopping.
A few caveats to be upfront about; we did not purchase any butcher meats or produce on this order. Those are two categories of items that we are very picky about and we didn’t want to end up with mushy apples or cuts of meat that were too fatty for our liking. There are 3 main advantages to this service that we identified after using it:
1) It takes considerably less time to select and order our items online off a shopping list than it does walking the store aisles. We probably saved ourselves about 1.5 hours.
2) You are able to keep a running tally of how much your groceries cost as you add items on line. If you need to stay within a weekly budget for groceries this is incredibly useful.
3) Random items that are wants and not needs do not find themselves mysteriously leaping into your shopping cart. This is a huge perk, especially if you have small children who have an obscene love of Laughing Cow cheese, Brisk iced tea, or pretzels. It is also useful if you have an obsession with cinnamon coffee cake.
A few disadvantages:
1) Price matching is difficult to do and not worth the effort when shopping online. I assume the same goes for using coupons.
2) You need to plan and order ahead. The booking of a pick-up time generally occurs 12-48 hours in advance of actually picking it up at the store.
We feel a bit late to the party on this one; but will certainly use the service again. We easily spend more than $50 in groceries and associated items per week in our household. This is an easy way to get back some of our time on the weekend so that we can use it for more valuable activities.
DoctorAl 