Yesterday, I tried out the online grocery shopping from Giant though Peapod. There are a bunch of things I really liked about it and a few things that make me reconsider using it regularly.

First thing I saw when I logged on what my most recent/common purchases.

Pros:

Convenience. I love the online interface. It’s really simple to add things, and they have your most recent purchases in a list. Since I normally buy the same stuff every week, it makes it really simple.

Adding things up until your cutoff time. I started making my list in the morning and when I remembered something throughout the day, I added it to the list. I forgot that we were out of flour, until I noticed the empty container in the kitchen. It took about 30 seconds to add it to my order.

Remembering random things I always seem to forget. Despite the fact that stamps have been on my grocery list for weeks, I ALWAYS forget to ask for them. They were literally the first thing I added to my list so that I wouldn’t forget. (They were also the first thing they handed to me when I picked up my order.)

Order totaling. I always plan to spend around $100, and then remember things I forgot and end up going over. This made it so easy to cap it at $100. When I added extra things, I took of a few things I didn’t really need.

Not having to get out of the car. I pulled up and they loaded up my car. The convenience of not having to drag kids shopping/chase them around the store is priceless.

Definitely saved time. Even though there is a Giant 10 minutes away, they don’t have a very big organic/non-dairy selection. So I drive to a Giant that’s 20 minutes away for those things. This one was 30 minutes away, but driving an extra 20 minutes round trip more than made up for the hour+ I spend walking around the store.

Fixing their mistakes. More on that below.

 

Order totaling on the side of the screen.

Waiting for them to load up my car.

Cons:

Online pricing. The produce pricing is per item. It was 39 cents per banana, and I picked how many bananas I wanted. So when I saw $1.49 per plum tomato I thought it must meant per lb, even though it said “each”. So I’m at fault for spending $1.49 for the smallest plum tomato I’ve ever seen (it weighed in at .2 lbs which means I ended up paying $7.45/lb for tomatoes).

Funky produce. The spinach I picked up on the 24th had a “best by” date of the 25th, and it was wilted and slimy. The kale wasn’t in an actual bunch, it was just leaves in a giant shopping bag, which looked a little weird. Other than that the cucumbers and bananas looked good.

Customer Service. This was a pro and a con because I sat on hold for 15 minutes, and then left my number so they could call me back in another 15 minutes. The customer service rep told me that the price for the tomatoes seemed a little high, but that maybe this is just an expensive tomato season and kind of told me I was wrong to go by an average price in the store since online had separate prices. I accepted it was my fault. She said she would give me a $15 first time customer discount, and that she would refund the price of the spinach. (Though I haven’t seen those credits yet.)

They didn’t have everything. They had most of the things I was looking for, but were missing some random things like Giant brand salsa, nutrition bars I was looking for, and there was a very limited selection of frozen fruit.

Using plastic bags. I knew everything would be placed in plastic bags, even though I have a bunch of the reusable ones. It doesn’t bother me that much, but almost every bag only had one thing in it. The tofu was in one bag, the spinach was in one bag, one box of cereal was in one bag. It seemed kind of wasteful.

Overall: I’m really excited for the program to take off because it could be so helpful. I really wanted to love it, and I think if it improves, and hopefully becomes available at a closer store I’d use it regularly. I might try to use it every 2 weeks for non produce items, since the closest store is 30 minutes away (at the Giant that we used to live right next to), and I’m not in that area for anything else. I realized I’m a little too particular about my produce, and that I’d rather pick out my own. As soon as the farm stand opens up down the street, I’ll get 90% of my produce there anyway.

Do you prefer to shop online? Have you ever ordered groceries through a service?