The home shopping secret

I've mentioned my challenge in getting out to the store now that I have two kids on numerous occasions…and that my tricks that were once working were starting to fade.  For example, Evan's not at all excited about the car cart anymore.

So about a month ago I got let in on a little secret…grocery stores and even Walmart offer home shop where you order online and they deliver to your house!  In fact, the mom that shared this secret with me said she'd been doing it for the last 4-5 years (she has a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old), mostly because both her and her husband despise grocery shopping.   I don't mind grocery shopping, especially because I typically am a sale shopper so I buy what I see that's on sale that week, and I like to do a lot of comparison shopping (for best price and best quality, etc).  That's something that I just don't know if I can trust another person to do for me!

However, I had to give this a try, because it would be a huge help to have someone else do my shopping for me so I can spend my weekends having fun with my kids rather than waste a whole morning dragging them to the store and back.  And what's better…the stores offer free delivery for the first time to just try it out, so I figured why not!?

I chose to try it with our local grocery store (King Soopers), and overall I had a good experience (see more below) although I haven't done it again until just now.  Mostly because John had been home more on the weekends and so I was able to get out to the store for a quick shop on my own and then I did take the kids one other time too.  But this weekend I just want to play with the kids while John is working the whole weekend away and so home shop is the little secret that's going to let me do just that!

How does it work?  Well, you go online, set up an account, add each item you want to buy to your list/order, comment on each item if you want to, and then enter your payment details.  You also select a time window for delivery (two hour windows are the options) and you have to get your order in by 9:30am the day you'd want your delivery.  I'm shopping now for a delivery tomorrow.

Anyway, here's my summary of the pros and cons of the King Soopers home shop:

Pro: The local store that does it near me has a great home shopper!  He called me to ask me questions about my order (i.e. if things on your list are out of stock), and he did a great job picking out the produce in a way that I wanted!  (You can put comments on the website order next to any of the items on your list so you can specify if you want ripe or non-bruised fruits, etc).

Con: It normally costs $10.95 for home shop and delivery.  That's kind of a big fee to me, someone who is on a budget and likes to do bargain/sale shopping as it is.  However, I think you get the fee waived if you order $100 or more, so I may try that too (it's often not hard for me to spend that much especially with as much baby food as Emma eats these days!).

Pro: Convenience, convenience, convenience.  I can't say enough how convenient it was to have my groceries delivered to me!  I was just sitting in my living room when the doorbell rang and the home shopper carried all my grocery bags in and put them on my counter for me!  So besides not having to drive to the store and shop myself, I didn't even have to unload the car and carry them inside!  If only they put them all away for you too…lol.

Con: The web ordering takes a long time.  So while it's supposed to save time, I found that the first time at least it took a long time.  For one, building up your shopping list from scratch by finding the items you want was not easy.  The website was not super easy to navigate and search. In the store, I know where things are.   I only hope it takes less time in the future since I've already got a list of items in my history so for those staple items they can be reordered more easily.

Con: Web pricing and item availability: I like to see the regular price for things on sale to compare if it's a good deal or not, and online only the sale/current price is shown (it does show a SooperCard icon next to items on sale though).  On top of that, the price comparison info (i.e. price per ounce) that are on the price labels in the store isn't there for each item either.  I really like to comparison shop to get the best deal, so I wish that extra information was there.  And lastly, there aren't photos for every item, nor could I find every item that I know they carry in the store.  This time I'm going to just put in comments that I want things that may not be on the web site and see if the shopper can find them for me.  I know he'll call me if he can't to ask for substitutions or just to not get the item.  Moreover, I'm also going to use the weekly ad that gets mailed to me to more easily see the sale items (since I'm a sale shopper after all!), rather than just dump the ad into the recycle bin with the other junk mail I get!  Hope that also helps!

Pro: You still get your Sooper Card savings and any e-coupons that you have loaded onto your card.  I have the app for the store so I often load coupons onto my card for extra savings.   One note, though, is that the savings from the e-coupons doesn't show up on the online order, but it does come off when your order is finally rung up in store if you have your card account linked in your home shop account, which I did).  And they take printed/paper coupons too, but you have to enter them in manually and then hand them to the delivery person.

Overall, I was so excited about my first home shop that I forgot to tip the delivery guy!  I will definitely remember this next time, since I think it's the same person all the time.  However, since the web-based shopping experience wasn't as good as it is for me in the store, I will not likely do this every week.  Rather, I'll keep it as an option for weekends such as this one that I don't want to go to the store, but that we still need groceries.  And then I also still need to try Walmart's home shop sometime soon too.  I heard they give you some freebies with your first trial (along with waiving the delivery fee, which I think is a bit less than it is for King Soopers).  Anyway, now that the secret's out…I hope others will find it useful too!