Last Fall, I tried my hand at grocery delivery services. When doing the research I only found that Safeway would deliver to our house. I was fine with that. They are a little on the pricey side, but it would outweigh the benefits.
I found that we were saving a lot of time and money doing the grocery delivery option. I loved being able to order from my phone, add to the list all week and once it was time to order, hit order and the groceries would arrive when I wanted them to. There was no piling 3 kids in the car, driving across town, unloading kids and dealing with crying, whining and arguing, no bagging my own groceries, loading them into the cart, loading into the car and then loading them back into the house. When I do grocery shopping from start to finish, it takes about 5-6 hours. No joke. So bring on the delivery.
Until Thanksgiving break, my plan was to order our groceries, so that I could take what I needed as we were leaving out-of-town and I was expected to bring ingredients for my dishes and I also had ordered groceries for when we returned from our trip and I wouldn’t have time to shop before the work week started. Well they never arrived. I waited all day at home, rearranging my schedule to be here and no groceries. I called the customer service line two times that day and spent over 2 hours on the phone. The result, they would bring them the next day.
Again, I waited all day and they never arrived. I had already paid for these groceries too. Oh I was irritated, I went out and got what I needed for the trip and dragged all 3 kids with me. I was not a happy mama that I wasted 2 days of my 3 days off on groceries that never came and that I paid for. It then took 2 phone calls and 2 weeks to get my money back. I was DONE with grocery delivery.
After looking at things, I realized that we were saving quite a bit of money shopping online and I decided to give them a try again this week.
So yesterday I was home waiting and waiting and the groceries never arrived. So I called after waiting 90 minutes past my 1 hour window, and customer service assured me that they were on their way. I waited some more, another 90 minutes, and they never came. Well we had plans and it was time to leave. So I called and asked them to re-schedule for 7pm-8pm the next day.
So this morning, as I was leaving for work, the doorbell rings and there are our groceries. Ugh! It was supposed to be PM, the evening. If you are any type of person trying to leave the house with your children you know that time is limited in the morning and any little thing can throw the whole routine off.
So now I am at home putting away the cold and frozen items and I should be on my way to work. I start looking at stuff that was in the bags and looking at my list and there were a ton of stuff missing. It seemed like they didn’t bring much, but I was so thrown off by the early arrival that I didn’t look. I started checking items off the list and not just a few items were missing, but 18! Oh this mama ain’t happy! We were now 30 minutes late to get the kids to camp and me to work.
In the car I made 4 phone calls to find the right Safeway that delivered to us. Fortunately, the gentleman on the phone was very nice and apologetic, but what about my time that was wasted, added stress and not having the food I paid for when I requested it.
That being said, “Goodbye Safeway!”, and I will be trying Instacart next time.
Update: The Stockton Safeway store assured me that my 18 missing items would be redelivered on Monday from 7:00 -8:00 pm. Again, I waited and no one came, no text, no calls and no email. I tried calling and was told I would have to call in the morning after 9 am.
This is what happens when I grocery shop with the kids, they convince me to use their allowance for junk.
I then called in the morning and demanded that my money be returned since I am now 3 days without my groceries that I have paid for and my time is wasted again. I then took the 3 kids with me to Target to shop for just those items. Well, as you remember, the reason I wanted to ONLINE shop was to SAVE MONEY and not get sucked into buying more things. Well we spent $60 going to Target with the attempt to just buy what was on the list. I am so frustrated!
Have you used “Grocery Delivery” before? Comment below about which have been successful for you.
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