Saturday, October 29, 2005

Buying groceries online

Living on-line has gone one step further for my family. This week, I purchased groceries on-line from Safeway.com. I have wanted to do it for a while, but this week the conditions were just right for it.
Work has been pretty hectic, the previous weeks were pretty rough and they culminated with a week long meeting at the company headquarters. I got back from this meeting and all I wanted to do was catch up on sleep, but we had things that we had to do. And there wasn’t time for shopping for groceries.
It was pretty cool. I was able to type in my shopping list, in my terms and it did a pre-search and returned results for each of my items. I could then refine those results and pick the item I was looking for.
Most of the items had pictures, so I could validate that they were the right one with what I would pick off the shelf. I was able to find everything I was looking for and it didn’t take too long (only about 20 minutes). Now, if you were just browsing, it would take a while – it works best if you know what you are looking for.
I selected a delivery time and waited. It was kind of exciting waiting for my delivery. I had ordered some frosting for some really good pumpkin muffins that my wife made and that helped build the excitement.
The delivery was a little late, because the maps of my neighborhood show a road that doesn’t go through as connecting. There were 3 items that they were out of stock on and my frozen things were still frozen (much more frozen than had I driven them home). I only got 3 produce items (1 orange, a bunch of cilantro and some shallots – none which really require “picking”).
I only have two complaints, both of which are really my fault. The first was the cilantro was bagged and tied shut. Four days later, still closed up, it started to get slimy. My fault for not taking it out of the bag. There was another item that I just picked the wrong size on. Again, my fault for not reading better.
Buying groceries on line will probably be something we do more of with all the activities that we are involved in. I really enjoy cooking, I find it very relaxing, and not having to get groceries will free up more time for cooking, among other things!
Your first delivery is free and they have a tiered pricing plan. Delivery for purchases over $150 is free, a four hour delivery window is $5.99 and a two hour delivery window is $9.99. Check it out!

1 comment:

Erik said...

I really miss homegrocer.com - they were fantastic :)