What to do when the online groceries arrive
Written by zeroline on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 in General, Grocers.
What do you need to do if you’re interested, like me, in simply putting your feet up and waiting for the doorbell to ring?
# Have patience your first time: The first time you buy your groceries online, you’ll need to allot a good hour or so. Web groceries are set up kind of like grocery stores, with lists that represent aisles of produce, dairy, frozen foods, etc. Each of those categories has many sub-categories - for dairy cheese, milk, yogurt, organic all on separate pages. Toggling back and forth takes time.
# Shortcut where you can: If you have a frequent buyer card with the store affiliated with the program, you’ll be able to save yourself some time by typing your id number into the browser. That’ll bring up a list of the items you bought the last time you shopped. Then you can just go through and click on the ones you want. That can cut a good half hour off your time.
# Clip coupons: Generally, the deliverymen will accept them. Also, before your first time google the worlds “coupon” and “peapod” (or whatever service you’re using) to see if there’s an offer for newbies. I found one that saved me $10.
# Schedule your deliveries carefully: If I have a pet peeve about grocery delivery it’s that as with the cable guy, you have to allow a window of several hours where you’re planning to be home. Those of you fortunate enough to have a doorman don’t have to worry about this. He’s allowed to accept your delivery, as is a neighbor you’ve designated for the task. What I’ve learned, though, is that by calling customer service - or going online - the day of my delivery I can narrow that window down to just a couple of hours, which will allow me to get on with my day.
# Complain if you find mistakes: I have yet to have trouble with an order (I’m about to process my third) but my friend Roberta’s came with three bruised bananas. She called customer service and was granted a credit. And it was much easier than driving back to the store.