I saw mention of this in another thread and it got me curious, so I googled it.
I went to Netgrocer.com and chose a box of cereal that sells in Publix for $3.99 - it was $5.75 online.
Then I see they charge you for shipping too.
Is the convenience worth the extremely high price? Does anyone do this on a regular basis, and if so, why?
I briefly did, back when I was working full time and lived on the third floor with a rickety spiral staircase. I’d order the canned goods and cat litter and let the strapping young man from Peapod carry them up all those stairs! 
I also found that their produce selector knew WAY more about good produce than I do, and if the price was right, I got some amazingly good produce from them.
Not all of their prices are unreasonable, but some of them are. Like shopping at any store for bargains, you have to know roughly what stuff costs elsewhere to know if it’s a good deal or not.
When I stopped working, I stopped being able to afford it at all. Now I shop mostly at Aldi and little independently owned produce markets. And now I have a strapping young teenager of my own to bring in the groceries!
I did Peapod occasionally years ago. It is quite a bit more costly, but when I did it, it was because the convenience was really worth it.
Here in this last week I have really thought about it. With running back and forth to and from the animal hospital at all hours of the day and night and all the other things that needed to be done I haven’t gotten a chance to go to the grocery store. I have just been ordering pizza or burgers or chinese food to be delivered every day. That is really expensive too, but I have a couple of cans of soup and a frozen turkey in my house and that is about it. I am going to the grocery store later today but it would have been nice to be able to order groceries online at 2 in the morning and have them delivered the next day. Generally speaking it is too cost prohibative though.
Peapod is cheaper than buying a car and paying for car insurance and parking. And it’s way more convenient than using a cab or struggling with groceries on a bus. So yeah, I admit I did it. I found that since it completely cut out impulse purchases it wasn’t as expensive as I’d anticipated.
From what I understand, some grocery stores in different places offer this service to their customers without the price being that much more expensive.
I have a friend who lives in Toronto who orders what she wants online and then drives to the grocery store for curbside service. They pack everything into her trunk and she takes it home. I would do that every time if I could.
We use Peapod whenever we need to get heavy stuff, like 28 pounds of kitty litter. Better them than us lug it up three flights!
At least two of the supermarket chains here offer online shopping, where they deliver the groceries to your home. Prices are the same as in store, but I think delivery costs about £3.50, depending on timeslot.
NYC actually has a grocery service which is solely online – that is, not associated with any physical store.
Fresh Direct. AFAIK it’s extremely successful. Their prices aren’t really more expensive than your average NYC grocery store; their selection is incalculably more vast; and they offer a wide variety of prepared and semi-prepared foods, often associated with popular NYC restaurants and chefs.
It’s a pretty okay deal if you are normally limited to your local grocery stores, and their prepared options are competing with your local delivery joints. Since I have a car and grocery shop in suburbia, it’s not the greatest deal for me. But I have used it from time to time.
This is what I have. If anyone has Meijer near them, they are using the store near me as a trial base for this service. If successful, they plan to expand it. I am doing my best to support it!
It costs 6.95 per order no matter what the total is, or you can pay 24.95 and get unlimited usage for 30 days, which is what I am doing. Shopping for a family of 4, especially when taking 2 kids along, takes me over 2 hours from start to finish and paying someone $3 an hour to do it for me is awesome.
You can get other things, like baby items, beauty items and toiletries, paper products, cleaning supplies, even beer and wine. For the same price as what they sell in the store. They have been very good at picking out good produce for me too. The only issue that I don’t like, is the sale prices don’t show up online. But they do have the sale items flagged so at least you can tell what is on special. I keep the weekly ad and use it to shop from.
I have used it 3 times and there is usually at least one thing out of stock, but they substitute it with something similar if you tell them it is ok to do that.
I LOVE this service and I hope they expand it even more!
I had back surgery three months ago and while I’m getting better I only have so much vertical in any given day and I don’t want to wast it at the market. Peapod has been great. It costs more than just doing it myself but, for me, it’s totally worth it.
