By Chuck Woodbury
EDITOR
Gail and I are self-isolating in our motorhome in Kingman, Arizona. We’re doing our best to avoid going out in public, at least where we’d be in close proximity to others. We had never done our grocery shopping online until three weeks ago, when we decided to give it a try.
We’re hooked. The Smith’s Food and Drug in town, about five miles away, delivers. You pay an additional $10. We’ve ordered three times now. Last evening, for example, Gail placed an order for about 40 items including some fruit and vegetables. They were delivered to us at 11 a.m. this morning.
When you order, you can leave notes about each item, whether you will accept a generic or similar product, for example, or if you like your bananas ripe or slightly green. But Smith’s takes it one step further. The person who selects your products, who is the same person who delivers it, will text you with questions. This morning, our food picker, Teresa, texted Gail about the green beans. She didn’t think the regular ones looked very good, so she sent a photo of the organic ones, which looked great. So Gail ordered those. We paid a little more, but we got quality veggies, not crummy ones.
We’ll continue to use Smith’s for our groceries here in Kingman. And even when we return to our home in Seattle, we’ll probably find another store we like. It’s nice to not have to hop in the car and battle traffic (in Seattle that would be an issue), when you can just order online and then have your food within a few hours.
What about you? Have you ever done your MAJOR grocery shopping online to have it delivered?
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No, we don’t grocery shop on line. In our rural hole-up spot there are no grocery stores willing to deliver this far out of town (21 Miles) However, we are blessed to have children who will do shopping for us and bring it by. Another choice in the survey might be “Does another do shopping for you?”. To that we could answer “YES”
Like Hook we are too far away at 32 miles from a delivery service. And I would’nt change it . Who wants to live around all those people in town.
We’ve shopped at several online stores here, and get curbside pickup. It’s not that far away for us, and we PPE up, don’t get out of the car, and they drop in our trunk on a plastic sheet ! I did have to go to a Smart and Final store to get beer and wine, and they were good at distancing everyone, and everyone wore mask and gloves as well. Most are pretty good about that. We try to shop in bulk and plan for a couple weeks, so we don’t have to go out of confinement too often!
We are fortunate to be in our home right now, we were supposed to be traveling. Hang in there everyone! We’re all in this together, and soon we can all look back and see how we did at our survival skills!
Upon investigating grocery delivery in our area of rural TN, it turns out the internet company the local grocery store (5 miles away) uses has upped the prices significantly: a $1.99 item I buy regularly is $3.09! I can’t afford that kind of markup on an entire order! I have also considered the pick-up option but after trying to fill my virtual cart from my shopping list, I could only order about half of what I wanted. Therefore, I have chosen to make the trip to Walmart about 30 min away and shop for two weeks at a time. I have, so far, been able to get 98% of what I want albeit sometimes in larger quantities than I would normally buy – it will take me a few months to use 5# of brown rice! ; ) But it will keep and I was happy to get it at all. It’s the little things that bring joy to my life. Just do the best you can each day.
AHH, mark-up! That’s another thing, the internet grocery shopper is going to get stung with. Most will never know, because they forfeited, for convenience, the ability to price shop.
Like the song says “times they are a-changin’ ” and the store near you will have a field day.
I live in Mid of the Mitt of Michigan, our county, has 7 confirmed cases 10 days ago. No deaths, yet we are forced to follow the rules as Detroit!!!
I have used these services in the past but I’m too fussy about the food I purchase, especially produce. Plus, going to the store is the only time I get to see my son now; he is the Wine and Spirits manager at our local chain. Interestingly, he says business is booming. Research shows that during tough times alcohol sales always increase. Hmmm!
If your state is like OUR state, the Governor has deemed liquor stores as unessential business’. Boy, is HE out of touch . . . Our local Smith’s supermarket is having trouble keeping the liquor department stocked because of the shutdown of all the liquor stores.
Tommy , Pat, Here in Lethbridge, Alberta, a place with the highest drug abuse on the planet per capita, (Bern, Switzerland is second) Every cannabis store and liquor store is doing a booming business. Our grandson fresh out of school, cannot access financial assistance, but our supervised consumption site (SCS) dispensing free drugs to all comers, is packed, and every newcomer has a check in the mail, a place to call home, and groceries in the apartment paid through my taxes. Tough times yup, sure are for some!
No shopping online. We call our kids, neighbors and social services to see what they need and go fill the cart(s). Sure looks like we are hoarders!!
We haven’t been inside a store since first of March; we’re not about to crowd into a mob of infected carriers. We use Instacart with two supermarkets and also Walmart delivery.
Tell us where the “mob of infected carriers” are John? Others would want to join you in staying away. Other than Spain and New York, I have not heard of mass infected mobs. In southern Alberta Canada we haven’t lost one person due to this virus, so we’re not to worried albeit we do take the precautions asked of us.
We make a weekly run to the grocery store. Use face mask, nitrile gloves, and sanitizer.
Shop with Country Mart, Amazon and most recently Target online. Country Mart delivers, most recently service organizations are picking up the delivery fee. With hubbys cardiac condition plus lung problems DR doesn’t want him to have exposure.
Online grocery shopping has been a revelation for us during this time. We pick a pickup time, pick what we want on the Walmart app and drive to Walmart a couple days later. They bring it out and put it in the hatchback for us. No contact shopping! And bonus – we’re spending less too because it cuts out a lot of impulse buying! So safe and easy!
Eastern WA is fine. No panic just calm cooperating people. All the grocery stores are open and have most items. Costco is doing a great job. Controlled entry so there isn’t any crowds. Employees in the front of the store sanitizing all the carts and there aren’t any large lines to check out. I praise their managers, they know what they are doing and are using common sense. Yesterday the only thing they didn’t have was T.P. And gloves. They have a reader board out front that they keep updated stating what is not available.
I tried the online route once. I found the experience less than satisfactory. Many of the items we wanted were not available among the online offerings. Many of the items we did order were out of stock or otherwise unavailable and the items that were substituted were not really acceptable. In the hurry to fill our order it seems we were given the most bruised fruit and sad looking produce, some of which had to be thrown right into the trash. So after that one order, we are now back to visiting the store and being as “socially distant” as possible during the visit, as well as only going after a long interval and not as frequently as we did before the pandemic. On the other hand, several of my grown children, living in other communities, are using this type service and seem pleased with it.
We are located in the quiet hills of North Central Arkansas and have not seen the problems of the more populace areas of the country. We are still going to the store for our shopping though many things have changed. We pick and choose our times and try to avoid the bigger box of the WM.
We have been fortunate here in North Arkansas with the fact that our county has only seen four cases and no hospitalizations as of yet. Several surrounding counties are even in better shape than us.
Meanwhile our trip for graduations has been cancelled. So we will not be going to the Great Northwest for May and June and our travel trailer sits idle while we wait this out.
You need to add another option “Online ordering and delivery is not available”
I worked retail for thirty years, I still enjoy going into stores for shopping. Nice being around other people at a distance.
Not offered in our location out of town.
No delivery option where I live. I doubt I would use it even if available. I work at an in public job, so going to the grocery store isn’t really additional exposure.
We live out in the sticks and nobody delivers out here, so I don’t actually have a choice. I’m not sure if I would because I really enjoy shopping and it’s our only opportunity to get out.
our local stores are so busy with deliver and pickup orders that you need to order weeks in advance to get a time slot. more less has shut off the service for new delivery orders
I’ve done grocery pickup once, with Walmart (5 miles away). It was ok, but I still spent $130 and didn’t get all that I wanted. The next time I drove 10 miles to Brookshires and did my own shopping. They limit the number of customers to 40% of capacity. Very easy shopping, nearly everything on my list was there. I didn’t need paper goods like TP and paper towels luckily, as those shelves were empty. The other upside of this was a 5% seniors discount, and I have the Brookshires discount card for another 30% on many items. I spent $144 with tax (groceries are taxed in Louisiana) and got $.10/gal off gas which I used yesterday filling my Jeep.
On-line shopping probably isn’t for us. We tried it the other night. The young lady picking out our food continually text my wife saying “We do not have that in stock right now, can I exchange it with this. Anything on the sale paper was gone long before our order was selected. Oh well, I guess this is the way life is going to be for a while.
ps – Sorry to hear about Gary.
Similar to what Ken B said, all local stores in our suburban Detroit community aren’t able to support the delivery or order online & pick up business. Deliveries are scheduled two weeks out.
Sadly, those of us that live rural don’t have the luxury of having home delivery, which means hitting the stores.
Tried the Walmart online ordering & pickup. Ordered bout 10 items and had to wait 4 days for a time slot to get em. When we got there to pick em up, they only had 3 of the items we ordered. Big waste of time. So now DW & I just go to the stores and try and find whatever we need.
Walmart’s service stinks!
I have to add to my reply. After the order and pickup, I’ve decided just to always go to Brookshires. It’s worth my time and money. I also don’t have to worry about getting bad produce or broken eggs. We always shop for a two week period, we’re fulltime in our motorhome and we have enough room to stock up, as we also have a basement freezer.
I used to order online and pick up at store, but now there are no available pickup time slots. Too many others are now taking up the slots I used to get.
Yes! Love having the option. So far, I’ve been very fortunate to have great shoppers who know how to select produce so we have been very pleased with our orders. Our shopper has even found items that I could never locate when shopping. Yes, it’s more expensive but our health and well being are worth it. Every time you venture out to the store, regardless of how much care you take, you restart the 14 day clock to be sure you are still healthy. Small markups in price and a healthy tip are a small price to pay for not needing to run that clock.
The poll says that 66% still go to the store. I’m one of them – gloves on, distance kept.
For those who find solace in having someone do their shopping for them, under the circumstances, and perhaps forever more, that’s fine.
I see this practice changing how grocery chains view future business models and I don’t like it one bit.
My wife and I like the ability to compare shop, to actually pick the radishes WE like not the bunch a selector will pick for us. Or find the milk with the longest best before date, cleverly hidden at the back of the shelf well behind the product with a week to last before best before date lapses. There’s many tricks to retail grocery. Home delivery will solve many of those retailer dilemmas.
Something really important will be lost if grocery delivery becomes the way of the future. This is not a criticism of whose enjoying this service during the lock down, it is a statement on the future.
FYI, in Alberta 2 large meat processing plants have closed down. Last I heard these operations (each) were processing upwards of 10,000 animals a day. News reports say we may have a meat shortage – I say no kidding.
Steaks on the BBQ may become a luxury item this summer.
Shopping and communicating with your picker online is fine, BUT what about those who are not connected with the world in this way. There are many who do not do Facebook or tweet etc or have all the electronic stuff so popular today. I guess if grocery shopping changes to home delivery, some folks will be faced with a few (expensive) changes to make in the way they live and communicate.
I’m sorry, Alvin, the question was are you using online shopping? A simple yes or no instead of the dissertation would have been nice. After reading your response, I was irritated. That’s not the intent of this site. Please stay positive…Have a super day and stay well! 🙂
Vicki, you are evidently new to this site. Alvin is Alvin and is always an interesting read.
“Or find the milk with the longest best before date, cleverly hidden at the back of the shelf well behind the product with a week to last before best before date lapses. There’s many tricks to retail grocery.”
Wow. Sorry you feel tricked, Alvin! That particular “trick” is called “stock rotation.” With milk, which is delivered often, the cooler is filled from the back, to push the still-fresh but maybe a day or two older milk, to the front. Do you think the grocery waits until they run out of milk before they order more?!? The same thing is done with goods on the shelf. When new product arrives, the older, BUT STILL GOOD, product is removed, the new placed at the back, then the older stock put in the front. That way, everything turns over and stays fresh. Trick, indeed.
I have found that these order on line or order for pick up internet sights are overwhelmed here in the Bay Area I went through the entire Amazon Prime ordering my groceries, designing menus based on availability. In the end, I was not be able to get a time for delivery. Then I switched to the local safeway store. Right away I got a time for delivery so I repeated the entire process but when I hit the “place order button” there sight was not working and my order kept getting the dreaded perpetual o circle of pending. I spent 3 hours. There is no excuse for not telling customers up front your sight does not work. This covid will not last forever and I will just by pass Safeway and never visit Prime grocery again
We don’t have a choice. Too rural. But we are going to try the on-line ordering/pickup thing at WalMart next time.
No delivery service available where we live. Too rural.
We are being very good about staying home. Our daughter told us about Shipt. We have used it 3 times now and are very happy with it! It works just as your comments about Smith’s. Our shopper texts us he/she is at the pre chosen store (we can choose from 4) and texts and asks questions also. I ordered ice cream the first two times to see if it would still be frozen when our order was delivered. It was! We are probably going to use it in the future occasionally, although we do like to grocery shop…
We’ve been very happy with “Shipt’s” service. Used for six weeks now. 👍
We tried using the delivery service for seniors but live to far out. Until now, you could not get a pick up order for weeks. So we have been going to the store as early as possible. Now they have where you can schedule for 7 days out and we are going to give it a try. There are somethings we normally buy in store, but can not get on line. Go figure. When this is all over I think I will go back to normal shopping.
My husband is a travel operating room technologist and I work from home in IT. We are currently in California on the central coast near Santa Cruz. We full time RV and only have one vehicle. He is often on call when he isnt at the hospital which means if he gets called, he has to be in the OR, ready to work within 30 minutes. Grocery delivery has saved us time amd stress of his possibly being called in while we’re shopping. Before the lockdown on March 17th, when I went to place a grocery order, there were plenty of times to choose from: delivery by a third party (super cheap fee), a 2 hour time window in a refrigerated truck (a little more $$),or a 4 hour time window (cheaper than 2 hour). I could place the order the night before and make changes to the order up until 1am, even when my delivery was between 8a-10a! It was awesome!
Now, there is almost never a time slot available and if I happen to get one, it is almost a week out and not usually a convenient day or time. Also, they no longer allow any changes at all once you’ve placed the order. I guess it’s still kinda convenient for the major items but by the time our delivery day comes, there are more groceries we might need and have to run to a convenience store where we pay more and possibly not get exactly what we want or not at all if they are out. I know it’s a first world problem, but it is a big change in our lifestyle. We will be fortunate if this is the only problem we have during this time.
Prayerful for all who are suffering and those who are caring for them.
In the SF Bay Area, we’ve had to go to multiple stores to find what we need, due to hoarding.
The online grocery delivery services that were up and running were completely overwhelmed, in the first two weeks. Something about living to close by to 7 million people….
If you live in a similar heavily populated area, don’t just go the Walmart or the big chain grocery stores. Go to the smaller outfits. More often than not, we have had good success in finding all we need. Even toilet paper.
Not all grocers have evolved as quickly as Kroger (Smiths, Fred Meyer, QFC etc) stores. We tried Amazon Whole Foods, Costco and another local chain but delivery times are about 2 weeks out. Even then they didn’t get the order right, we’re told refunds to credit card for missing items will take about a month to process yet they’ll charge your card and take your money immediately! Much easier to go to a store to get what we want.
We are camp working just outside Marathon in the Keys. There are 2 grocery stores in town, but we have not taken advantage of it yet. We still haven’t gotten used to the idea of someone else choosing our meats and vegetables. Other who were here had difficulty getting what they wanted. The stores here are limiting shoppers who go in to minimize contact. So far there have been few confirmed cases where we are.
We have checked out ordering online from a couple of local choices, but both are so swamped you have to get on very early in the morning to get a delivery appointment time a day or two later. They only release “today and tomorrow” times each day.
Like so many others have posted the local grocery deliveries are overwhelmed. The last time I tried to order online I could only get a third delivered, a third I had to pickup curb side, and the rest was out of stock. I gave up and instead the next day I went shopping first thing in the morning. Found just about all I needed and there were very few people in the store. Stay safe and be smart.
Actually, a form of online ordering. We were told by our kids not to go to the store. We make a list and message it to one of them and it shows up at our back door that evening.
We have had excellent success with InstaCart and just had our 6th delivery this morning (ordered last night at 10:30 and was delivered at 8:45 this morning). We have ordered from Sprouts, Costco and Sam’s Club and have received 95+% of everything we ordered. InstaCart’s smart phone app is excellent and allows you to approve/decline substitutions and also communicate with the shopper via text real time.
Not available in the small town we live in~ would try it if it was
I still prefer going to the store. I just wish that the shopper in the family went alone instead of dragging husband/wife/ child’s along. Gets too crowded in the aisles. Never liked it when there was no virus. Now it’s worse. They gotta handle everything and then put it back and try again. Hey get in get out and get home. I guess I’m too cheap to pay someone to shop for me and I get to seize bargains that I hadn’t thought of. My daughter got laid off and she’s doing shopping for intacart. Making decent money. Glad for her and she loves shopping anyway.
We ordered our groceries online for the first time about 4 weeks ago. Very pleased with it. We drive to curbside pickup just to stretch our legs. Don’t even have to get out of your vehicle!
My husband and daughter do the shopping (she has particular tastes and has to keep him in line from buying the store) while I stay home. I would consider pick up as an option personally. At least that would get me out once in a while.
There are four of us living together. The youngest one (50) does the shopping and most of the cooking. She is very careful, and wears a mask and gloves anywhere beyond the farm.
We go to Publix on “old folks days” (Tues-Wed from 7am-8am) since we live where there’s no delivery and no pick up options. We do some shopping online but it’s taking awhile to get orders delivered. There is no more 2 day Amazon delivery. Some items can’t be found (at least when we’re shopping in person) but we’ve been fortunate in having a young neighbor who delivers what we can’t find (eggs) and a friend who mails us products we can’t find (bread flour and all-purpose flour). We had other friends who generously give us 6 rolls of toilet paper…haven’t seen any anywhere since early March. We buy whatever meat is available…sometimes there’s no beef, other times no poultry. Evidently fresh produce is not something people will hoard since that’s available all the time although not as good as it was before. It’s been difficult at times but at least we have a roof over our heads and food on the table for every meal. We’ve got it good compared to so many others.
I still shop at the store because I am also responsible for getting an elderly man all his needs, including prescriptions. He recently had a stroke, & very much appreciated my husband & I
I have leukemia, with an impaired immune system, so delivery has been great for me.
As the tourons are not permitted at our beaches now the stores are not as crowded. Summer check in Saturdays can be a b!tch. So, yes we order online every 5 – 7 days. The picker will text with any problems or suggestions. He/she is also the delivery person. We get 99% of what we order for a $4 charge plus a tip. We have had no problems with time~~ ordered Thursday afternoon, added 2 items at 11PM and was delivered 10:30 Friday. Picker texted when checking out and again when on his way.
I guess a month or so ago, my wife still did the shopping as per usual, but our daughter decided that we needed to stay home all the time and she is doing the shopping. As to ordering and having it delivered, like many of you appear to do … I didn’t realize how far behind the times my wife and I are. I’m not sure either of us could figure it out. Our only computer knowledge is to do emails like I am doing here. Until now we’ve never seen the need for a smart phone. I hope some of the old fashioned ways hang around until I die. I still haven’t figured out everything on my computer. By the way, our daughter went to the store today and she said it was like the day before Thanksgiving and still nothing on the paper aisle and no frozen food. Fortunately a couple of weeks ago she found commercial TP on a commercial janitorial site (big 9″ rolls) – not soft and cushy but it does the job.
I have been ordering groceries online but we live 25 miles out of town; too far for delivery. So I drive to the store where they bring my groceries to the car. I put on my mask and latex gloves before getting out of the car. I would prefer to pick out fruits and veggies myself but I am grateful for this service. Such an uncertain time. I no longer think about all the travel plans that won’t be realized this year… now I think about friends and relatives that didn’t survive.
I understand that for some people, having someone else do the shopping is a blessing. Maybe it’s a single parent with children or elderly. Whatever your reason, you have to do what’s best for your family. I am personally not comfortable with having someone else risk themselves shopping for me, while I’m still perfectly able to shop for myself. If the store was completely empty and it was just one or two shoppers filling all the orders, maybe that would be fine, but they are shopping with the public around them and risking getting sick for my groceries. Many of the personal shoppers are young, with minimal training in decontamination and cross-contamination. I’ll keep doing my own shopping, so I can reduce the number of people who have had contact with my supplies/food.
In a larger city like Vegas , the wait time for a delivery can be 2 weeks or better. If you use Instacart there is a significant fee for their service. Gloves and mask on with sanitizer in hand, it’s off to the store!
We’re 25 miles south of Monterrey, Mexico. All our HEB stores provide online shopping with either delivery or store pickup. No need to get out of the car. We went to the nearest HEB the other day and the majority of shoppers were employees pulling the online orders.
My teenaged son was quarantined for two weeks in his room (ER would not test him but said to assume he was positive). So none of us left the house for a month. I used InstaCart several times and am happy I had the option. I made sure to tip (in cash) very generously and gave our most recent shopper a cloth mask in addition to the tip. Working as shoppers is the only way many people can keep a roof over their kids’ heads. Keep in mind that it is not the fault of the shopper if items are not available.
I read an article recently where people were posting large tips when they ordered and then changing the tip to $0 after the fact. Disgusting!
Also, our area has Good Fairies organized on Nextdoor. These are people who volunteer to shop, run errands, donate TP, etc for their neighbors.
Now that we are all well I will be doing my own shopping and am spending hours every day keeping busy by sewing masks that I hope to distribute to our considerable homeless population. Getting supplies for that is a challenge though.
Logged into Jewel and ordered groceries, then found out I had to drive 20 miles to pick the stuff up. Tried a closer place couldn’t get a pick up time. Went to the store.
I tried it once. I ordered in the morning and the food was delivered just a few hours later. But the online selection was far smaller than what is on the shelves, the person assembling my order seemed to try to pick out the worst (and sometimes totally unacceptable condition) produce, and the items that were substituted for the specific ones I ordered were sometimes far less than satisfactory. So now I am back to physically visiting the store, albeit with the precautions of my wearing a mask and gloves, and only going about once every 10 days or so, far less than in “normal” times.
My wife orders from Wal-Mart and I go pick up. They substitute some items but always text her to approve the sub items.
Only 1 time did we get something that was not useable.
We’ve been doing our shopping this way for about a year now, if we are at home.
So far, if we’re on the road we just go to the store. We usually have a good stock when we head out and pick stuff up as it’s needed.
Where I live isn’t densely populated so I do my own shopping once a week or so, wearing a mask when I do. If the stores parking lot has a lot of cars in it, I’ll try again some other time.
We have used the on-line and delivery twice now. Once with Sprouts then we found out that at our address we could get free delivery from Costco. That was great because those two are where we shop most when home. My wife noticed the shoppers weren’t as picky about produce as she is. Even with that it was better than going out. Because we are compromised seniors our delivery was free but we tip the delivery person who was also our shopper.
I sleep in my bed in my RV. I use my toilet in my RV. And I select/handle my own food. I have watched some of the pickers at major stores and no way do I want them selecting what I buy.