I’d like to try some sort of service like that because it would assuredly save me money - I’d plan my menu, order what I need, and not get other stuff while shopping hungry. I’m not sure I trust them, though, plus they aren’t here anyway.
I think around the dot-com era there were no less than 412 different Peapod type services, and today only Peapod (and smaller regional stuff) has survived. “Webvan” comes to mind as one of the 411 that are now gone.
Wow, you are the queen of Peapod.
In NYC, FreshDirect rules the roost. Unlike Peapod, FreshDirect is an entirely independent grocery with no “terrestrial” storefront (just a giant honking mechanized warehouse in Queens). They have lots of prepared & semi prepared foods, often in conjuction with popular NYC chefs, as well as standard groceries. Edited to add: their prices are slightly higher than NYC grocery stores, but only slightly, and no schlepping on the heavy items.
It’s pretty freaking sweet, but the amount of packaging made me feel guilty. That, and the fact that my local grocery store is actually across the street from me. That and there’s a Trader Joes 5 minutes away. So, yeah, I had to quit cold turkey on account of the overwhelming guilt. But the service was sooooo good. Sweet, sweet, laziness.
[quote=“Mama_Zappa, post:15, topic:497139”]
[ul]
[li]We never knew which items would actually arrive: a lot of times, some critical items would be out of stock and not included in the order. Every order was missing at least one such item. So we had to plan on going to the store anyway.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Yep. And often they’d substitute an item, and it was not always a great substitute.
On one particular October 30th, I ordered, among other nom noms, a large pumpkin. They were out, so instead they brought a can of pumpkin pie filling.
That was one son of a bitch to carve, I can tell you.
They’ve been great on weekends when we’re too busy to shop, but the produce is not the best, and our eggs are often broken. The variety is also somewhat less than Giant’s stores.
As a working single Mom, it’s the bomb! Especially for the super big Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping.
I wish they had more large/bulk sizes (the only Bisquick they carry herre is a 5 or 7 oz envelope!) and more baby stuff (they’ve never had Formula that worked for Celtling.)
It would seem to me that new parents would be a core market for them if they’d just cater to us a bit more!
Anyway, I love , and use it all the time. My favorite thing is that you can type in your store card number, and it brings up a list of items you buy regularly. (Face it George, Big Brother does have some merits. . .)
The only thing I didn’t like was the one time I used the drop-off service (They leave the food in boxes and coolers when you’re not at home.) they warn you not to throw away the boxes or you’ll be charged a fee. And I didn’t want to anyway, after all they are re-useable! But after a month of them sitting on my front porch, I tossed them.
The service I use, you’ve got three choices for what happens if they’re out of something:
- Same brand, different size
- Same size, different brand
- No substitutions