I don’t use delivery, not sure if it’s available in Flint. I like to choose my own produce and meats, though. I’d have control issues there. For boxed and canned goods it sounds great. Would they inspect the carton of eggs to make sure there’s not a broken one glued in there? Do they give yoiu credit for unacceptable product?
Hmm. We have a few delivery places, and I know I’ve seen Amazon Fresh (anyone used them?) on the road.
But I live across the road from two major grocery (Safeway and a local chain), plus Whole Foods and Trader Joes down the road a piece. I like browsing the grocery to see what looks interesting, so I can’t say that I’d order delivery since I try to combine trips as much as possible too. It’s unusual that I’d make a solo trip just for groceries.
About the only thing I could think of that I’d use delivery for would be the farmer circles that let you do a group buy and then pick up the goods at a drop point (grah, I’m blanking on what they’re really called).
I don’t think I’d ever use delivery as an option. I like grocery shopping.
I live in the UK and I tried Tesco home delivery for a while, a couple of years back. I hated it, because:
-no matter how clever they make the substitution system, it can’t make the sorts of on-the-hoof substitution decisions I might make in store (for example, “Pineapples aren’t available, so what else looks nice?”). I always ended up having to follow up my shopping delivery with a trip to the shop to fill in the inevitable gaps.
-I missed out on all the end-date reductions. These are usually a big win for me, as I have a chest freezer in the garage, so when chickens are reduced to silly prices, I’ll buy half a dozen.
-I missed out on all the obscure little products that you really can only stumble upon by walking around the store.
-Dammit, I know exactly what I want a red pepper, or a banana to look like when I buy them. I can’t trust anyone else to make this choice for me.
And anyway, I actually enjoy grocery shopping.
CSAs, or Community-Supported Agriculture.
The delivery service we’re using right now isn’t a CSA, more like a “vegetable box scheme” as mentioned in the CSA page. As in, we don’t just get a percentage of what a particular farm harvests; there’s a bit more variety (and we do get some things from further away e.g. bananas).
Any supermarket execs reading this - perhaps you should consider an entrance charge? Seems like you’re operating leisure facilities without realising it 
I love Peapod. I hate to shop and I live in a townhouse. I order about once a month. My typical order includes a 24-pack of toilet paper, 2-3 25 lb boxes of cat litter, about 15-20 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke, a 200 ml jug of detergent, several 2 1/2 gallon water jugs, big bags of cat food etc. I figure that going to the store, lugging all of this stuff to the car, and then schlepping it up the stairs to the kitchen would take 2-3 hours and be tough on my back. Instead, I spend the 2-hour window paying bills or watching tv, the delivery person does the schlepping, I save time and it costs me only about $7 (plus the $20 I routinely tip-seriously I think these guys earn it since my groceries take them at least 5-6 trips). Plus, one of the benefits is that they switch the specials on Wednesday, so I check out the specials on Tuesday and order what I want, then go back on Wednesday to pick up any of the second week’s specials (they let you hold them for 10 days). As for produce, I hate shopping since I don’t know what I’m looking for so I tend to be too picky. They generally do a better job. Also, since the items come directly from the warehouse, I find that a lot of them have later expiration dates than items actually in the store.
No delivery for me. There are a couple of Safeway stores within walking distance…I can use the exercise!
My wife and I use Amazon for about 90% of our grocery shopping and I couldn’t be happier with their service. What really makes it work for us is the unattended delivery. I usually have them come in the 5-6am window so everything’s ready when I wake up. Otherwise I try to time it so they arrive just before we return from work.
I don’t live in a town with grocery delivery, but I’d use it about once a month if I did.
I live in a walk-up apartment. I hate-hate-hate lugging heavy or bulky items up the steps. I have bum knees and a bad back, so it can be a difficult proposition sometimes.
If delivery were available, I’d use it for things like stocking up on canned goods, big packages of TP, soft drinks, flour, laundry soap and other heavy stuff. Do they let you order beer? 'Cause that would definitely be easier than schlepping a 12 pack or case up the steps.
My 80-year-old aunt in Montreal gets her groceries delivered from the local IGA. She can no longer carry anything the slightest bit heavy.
My wife likes grocery shopping too, but there was a period when she was housebound for medical reasons. Delivery was a godsend then.
Peapod saved my ass when I was on crutches for a year. However, I don’t normally shop at the main grocery chains; I find better prices and/or products in Costco, which doesn’t deliver, or any number of small local places, particularly meat and produce, and I like a wide variety of random ethnic products that you simply don’t find in mainstream grocery stores. Plus I often make grocery choices based on what looks good in the market that day vs. setting out wiht a list and sticking to it.
So no, I wouldn’t do delivery on a regular basis, but I can certainly see how it would be very handy for some people. If I didn’t have a car or a good grocery within walking distance, or if I wanted to stock up on nonperishables, it might make a lot of sense.
It sounds nice, but I can’t even begin to imagine what the delivery charges would be here. I don’t need to worry about tipping/not tipping for pizzas or Chinese food delivery because no restaurants deliver to my neighborhood, so I assume the equally far away grocery stores - 18 miles rt for the closest ones - would charge an astronomical fee.
I would definitely do it if, say, Target had something like this. But I don’t buy huge items elsewhere, and I shop 2-3x/week. I wouldn’t want my produce or meat selected, either. So often I shop the weekly specials; a substitution at the same price point would be fine, but if not, I would be pissed.
I can definitely see its utility in high rise walk ups and for the elderly or disabled. From what I can tell, most elderly Pittsburghers either have family close by or have the money to head to Florida for the winters, so the time they would need the most help, they’re away.
It doesn’t appear that Pittsburgh has the service widespread, though. Right By Nature, a (mostly) organic and natural foods grocer, delivers to the Hill district and Downtown for $5 with a $35 purchase. Even still, I think you can shop online and pick up your order hours later; I still don’t do that. Dunno why.
Our local Safeway has home delivery, and at least some people use it because I’ve seen their trucks around. But when we looked at it when they started their website had a relatively limited selection, and at higher prices. It is useful to compare the name brand with a coupon and the store brand. Ours is also very close, and very pleasant.
One useful thing is that before my father-in-law moved, we ordered some stuff for him to be delivered from his local store. But we’re not interested for us.
Seeing this thread reminded me that I’d like to try our local Schnucks’ home delivery service. The delivery charge is only something like $6, which would easily be offset by having someone else stick to the grocery list (sometimes I go for impulse items). Plus, my husband and I have been struggling to find somewhat reasonably-priced ways to make our lives a little easier.
Yes, it’s only grocery shopping, and I actually don’t mind it that much, but it’d be nice to have one less thing to worry about. For what it’s worth, I’m almost 35 and have two fairly young children; both I and my husband work full time.
I would love home delivery if anyplace around here offered it. I have heard Meijer is considering it, which would be great. Right now I do use their online grocery express service where you have them shop and you just call from the parking lot during a 1 hour time slot you choose, then they bring everything out to the car. You can tell them if you want substitutions or not, and before they bring everything out they list things they subbed (average 1-2 per order) and you can approve or reject them before you pay. They know me now so they are good at subbing things for me, I have never had an issue with produce quality or anything like that.
Only a few stores offer this though, so I actually have to drive further away to get this service. But it sure beats shopping with tired toddlers. I still go in if there are special items I want to pick out myself, I am at the store anyway so I can shop for 5-10 minutes, pick out a few things myself, then have the rest brought to the car. It costs about $6 for this and it is worth every penny to me, I would gladly pay double that to have it brought to my house.
I have thought about using Amazon for more things, but I only have to do a once a month or so trip to Target for home items like detergent and paper towels, so that’s not such a big deal.
I really like shopping online in general though, it is a big time saver for me. I get deliveries of something or other at least a few times a month, I buy almost all our clothes that way too. The kids can try on stuff at home, then I just return anything we don’t like at a local store. Beats hours of mall shopping with kids who don’t want to be there!
Car-free in Boston MA, US, here.
We have most of our groceries delivered.
Every 4-6 weeks we get a big Roche Bros delivery (used to use PeaPod but they had a lot of quality-control issues with cold and frozen items) with all the heavy stuff.
We also have weekly produce deliveries from Boston Organics (mostly locally sourced, with some stuff obviously not local, like bananas, and very little local stuff during the winter for obvious reasons).
Our meat comes from a CSA from a central Mass farm - naturally raised, pastured beef, pork, lamb and poultry - they make their own bacon and sausages too. This isn’t delivered directly to my house - they bring the meat into the city on the first Tusday of the month and we all go to pick it up at a central location.
This leaves me with just bread, milk and other odds and ends to pickup throughout the week on my way home from work.
Living car-free in the city is pretty feasible. We’ve been doing this since we sold our car in 2004.
ETA - thanks for the reminder. I have a “free delivery” coupon to use before the end of the month. Delivery charge is usually $10. Putting in my order now.
I moved out of NYC, and Fresh Direct is one of the things I miss most.