As February was ending, it became to feel less and less safe in my area. I knew of a few people who had been sick for a while with flu-like symptoms. The flu season has hit hard for us, in addition to COVID19. I was also watching international news and the future for the US didn't look good. Anyways, I was apprehensive about going to my last 2 shopping venues. So, I chose to do delivery service for both of them. I used 2 different services, Shipt and Instacart.
I used Shipt for a Target grocery delivery. Shipt has a 4-week free trial. You have to call to cancel the membership before the 4-week end, or you will be charged $99 -- just beware. And I anticipate the phone lines will be busy in another 3 to 4 weeks. So, it may be wise to try canceling at your 3-week mark, instead of waiting till the last minute.
Okay, so for my Target Shipt delivery
Target has pretty good prices on their store-brands, for both non-food and food items. And the quality for those brands is very good. Our Target stores get a lot of business over the weekends and shelves can be quite bare of the basics by the end of Sunday. For that reason, I scheduled my delivery for late Tuesday afternoon. (If I do it again, I'll choose Wednesday mid-morning.) The other advantage to selecting a mid-week delivery is you're much more likely to get a time-slot. I was just checking weekend time slots this past weekend and they were all booked up, here.
My delivery person said she'd shopped for someone's order on Monday afternoon and said the milk had been completely cleaned out. By Tuesday afternoon, the milk had been restocked. However, the frozen orange juice that I'd wanted was completely wiped out by Tuesday afternoon.
When my shopper experienced no or not enough stock of one of my items, she texted me and asked if I'd like a substitute (giving me alternatives at the same time). The substitutes were not always the same price. So you may want to ask about the price difference on substitutions, if that isn't offered.
I was informed via text when my shopper was finished and would be leaving for my house. I readied my end by finding gloves, disinfecting wipes, and opening the garage. When my deliverer arrived, I took delivery in an open area of the garage. She put everything on the floor and I handed her a tip. Shipt does allow for an in-app tip, and in the future I will do that. I stood 6 to 10 feet away from her while she was bringing the items in, but did have to get within close proximity to give a tip. If I were sick, this would be too close for her safety and if she were sick, it could potentially risk infection for me.
After she drove off, while wearing heavy duty latex gloves, I wiped down every package with homemade bleach wipes. I placed items that needed refrigeration or freezing in the garage fridge and freezer. nothing came into the house at that point. I allowed the rest to sit in the garage for several hours, so the bleach could do its thing. After several hours, I brought the items inside (if you remember, we had a bit of a mouse problem last year, including in the garage), but I placed them all in a spot in the house where we don't go often. We just left those items in this spot for several days. When I did finally need to use some of the delivered items, I washed plastic packaging under running water before opening and produce with a bit of liquid dish soap and lots of water before using. After the fact, my son and DIL told me they had done something very similar after using delivery for groceries -- disinfecting, then washing well. My DIL is very conscious of household cleanliness, so I knew I was on the right track for safety, here.
For my Instacart experience
The other delivery service I used was instacart. Instacart serves many grocery stores in my area, but also Cash & Carry SmartFood Service (the restaurant supply). Instacart has a first-time free trial, nothing to cancel later. There is a service fee that is not waived. It looks like it's about 5%. In addition, a small amount is added to the price of each item compared to the store's usual price. Still, for many items, it was still less expensive for me to use Instacart for Cash & Carry than any other delivery option, because Cash & Carry's price per unit is so outstanding for institutional sizes on many items. The default for tipping on Instacart is in-app, so unless you waive the tip, you will be charged a tip of about 5%. For the service of having someone shop for my groceries and take the risk of being in public for me, a tip is an expense that is well-worth it to me.
My experience with the Instacart shopper is much like the one with Target's shipt. I used Instacart on a Wednesday morning. The shopper texted me as he shopped. I also received in-app chat messages. I had the app open on my laptop the entire time he was shopping and I could "see" when he picked up an item. In the case of needing substitutions, I was notified of possibilities by the app, which I could then approve. For the one item that I had not selected a substitution, the shopper messaged me with a photo of a possibility, along with price. I was able to approve that substitution via chat message.
Again, I took delivery in my garage and mentioned to the driver that I'd tipped in-app. I followed my disinfecting and storage procedure for all of the items.
For both services, my receipts were emailed to me.
The one-time service charge for Shipt is about $10 (if I recall correctly). According to the Shipt website, you can also subscribe for just one month, for $14, unlimited deliveries in that one month. Shipt also marks up the cost of each item. Their website indicates that this mark-up ends up being about $5 for every $35 spent.
Is the shopping fees for someone else to do my shopping worth the expense? For certain circumstances, the expense is worth it. In my region, people over 60 and/or with medical vulnerabilities (or members of their household with the same conditions) are being asked to stay at home as much as possible. Having groceries delivered is another way to minimize exposure to coronavirus.
There are ways to minimize the service and delivery fees. There are coupon codes and/or offers for free trials. Bundling your shopping into one trip for a month reduces flat rates that may be assessed, such as Instacart's regular delivery fee (I think that's a $3.99 flat rate).
If you schedule well in advance, you can avoid extra "busy delivery times" fees. Instacart does have a surcharge for extra busy periods. However, the customer is notified of this surcharge during the order placement.
In addition, you can reduce service and delivery fees by just buying basic food items or ingredients for scratch cooking. As your overall grocery budget will be lowered by shopping this way, so will your percentage-based delivery fees. Buy only the foods or supplies that you cannot buy through a place like Amazon or other web store, such as fresh produce, meat, or frozen items. By making a minimum purchase through a web store, you can often get the shipping charge waived.
Key points on using grocery delivery services
- Disinfect as if these items could have been exposed to the virus. The Target items were delivered in plastic bags. I threw those bags out immediately. Cash & Carry doesn't have bags, as many items are extra large. I wore heavy duty gloves when going through all of our items and I used homemade bleach wipes to wipe absolutely everything down. I, then, left it all in the garage for several hours before bringing items into the house.
- Maintain distance from the delivery person, or opt for contactless delivery. Instacart offers contactless delivery as an option. With other delivery services, you can request the delivery be left at your door in the comment/special request section when placing the order.
- The shopper gets paid for their service. However, under our current circumstances, a 5% tip was greatly appreciated by the personal shoppers I used. Tip in-app to eliminate physical contact between yourself and your shopper.
- If you order from a web store and receive delivery via UPS, USPS, or FedEx, obviously there is no tipping, and in many cases, no shipping charge with a minimum purchase. Bonus -- with most deliveries through these organizations, it seems to be standard practice to leave packages at the door with no interaction between the driver/delivery person and resident.
- Just like regular grocery shopping, comparing prices between stores and services can save a lot of money.
- Amazon Prime subscribers can use Amazon's grocery delivery (which includes both Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods), depending on area.
Have you used grocery delivery services before? What have been your experiences?
