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IMHO the three biggest challenges have been cost, accuracy, and quality. We have a lot of options for this in NYC: PeaPod by Stop N' Shop, Instacart, Fresh Dir
by apeace 9y ago
IMHO the three biggest challenges have been cost, accuracy, and quality.
We have a lot of options for this in NYC: PeaPod by Stop N' Shop, Instacart, Fresh Direct, and Whole Foods has its own delivery service.
I've tried them all. I REALLY want to stop going to the grocery store. But with all of them, I've found:
* The price is too high to justify it. Walking down the corner to the grocery store is not that big a deal.
* You don't always get everything you ask for. They run out of stock of things, or forget things. So you often end up missing that one crucial ingredient.
* Sometimes they don't give you the quality you're looking for. Maybe the bananas or avocados are either unripe or too ripe. A couple services ask you the preferred ripeness, but then they don't end up having that so they give you a different ripeness.
* Back on the pricing: I personally tend to buy only 2-3 days of food at a time, because I want it to be fresh. If I want baked cod on Friday night, I generally want to buy it Thursday or Friday. But since I'm paying a premium for my delivery, it makes more sense to batch it into bigger orders, which doesn't work for me.
- jimbokun 9y agoYou live in NYC, and you still want delivery? I mean, when I lived in Manhattan, the nearest grocery store wasn't much further than my refrigerator. Walking into the store and grabbing the thing you want would have been a lot faster than ordering online and waiting for someone to deliver.
- benwilber0 9y agoDepends how much you value your time. If you want to shop at whole foods or trader joes then you're going to stand in line. Standing in line is one of my least favorite things to do. I would rather pay a delivery fee and have someone else do my shopping and bring it to me while I spend the timing doing something else that I enjoy.
- jimbokun 9y agoYeah, I was thinking more the little super markets and bodegas on every corner, than whole foods or trader joe's.
- urethrafranklin 9y agoCome on that's nowhere near grocery-store quality if they even have fresh foods of any kind.
- dmix 9y agoI lived close to a grocery store downtown, walking distance, but I still used an online grocery service for a significant portion of my groceries. I'd get a monthly delivery of non perishable or large/heavy items such as toilet paper, paper towels, canned food, milk bags (this is Canada), frozen food, juice, pasta, etc, etc. Having to carry large/heavy items without a car was annoying so the service was a great help. Basically I'd walk to the store for fresh meat, deli meat, cheese and fruit/vegetables. Everything else I'd just order online. The great part of the online store is I could reorder the same list without having to pick each one out again, with some small modifications usually, so it saved a bunch of time. It was also cheaper on a frequent basis when using the online service. The grocery stores downtown usually have a premium price on everything.