I would think that would be a major issue but most of our bigger Harris Teeters have remodeled and put in huge self check out areas, similar to Walmart and Target.
Uber Eats had a 50% coupon off grocery this week, which can be stacked with the current 25% off Uber gift cards at Costco. I was also eligible for a trial of Uber One, so I did a grocery delivery order today.
This may have been the most problematic delivery order I have ever had. I suppose Christmas Eve is a challenging time for delivery. The store may be crowded. The shopper is likely in a rush and may just go through the motions. Support may be understaffed and overwhelmed. They may temporarily switch support staff to all international, giving regulars day off.
The shopper said 3 items were out of stock that were actually in stock and chose inferior substitutes. All my shopper instruction comments I listed in my order seem to have been ignored, as well as my texts about which substitutes to choose. I appear to have gotten wrong price charged on one of the substitutes.
In the past, when I have a problem with Uber Eats, support has been helpful. With a quick talk on live chat, support usually refunds whatever item had an issue. This time, there was a longer wait for live chat support than I have seen before. The person who responded, initially said “Welcome to Placemates support”, rather than Uber Eats. When I mentioned my issue, the person quickly said this is better handled by another department who will contact me by email, then ended chat before I could reply. I contacted support again, with a similar result, a short comment, then quickly ending chat before I could reply. I do not expect to receive an email.
The net price was $33 for the following items. In spite of the problems I had, I think it’s a good financial deal. I’m also glad to not have to go out, particularly if the store was crowded, as I expect is the case, with the store being closed tomorrow. Overall I’m glad I chose to shop delivery, rather than going in store; but next time I’ll time my grocery shopping to avoid certain holidays – both for in store and delivery.
- 2 Whole Rotisserie Chickens
- 2lb Frozen Salmon Fillet
- 2 Post Shredded Wheat and Bran Cereal
- 4 Packaged frozen vegetables (2 stir-Fri, 1 green beans, 1 mixed)
- 2 Packaged dried beans (navy + black)
- 5 Frozen meals
- Bananas
It seems the more I do curbside/delivery, the worse the produce I end up getting.
I love using curbside for Walmart (the store I will not enter because of various reasons). They consistently do quality food. Cannot complain. I do go into Safeway and Kroger occasionally. H likes going inside Sprouts.
I used Target curbside groceries for the first time today. Many grocery stores in my area have designated parking spots for curbside, but no other grocers’ curbsides are as actively used as Target. There were an average of 6 cars in curbside spots at any time, with a steady flow of people leaving and arriving every few minutes.
It seems like a well organized operation. At my Target, you are encouraged to indicate that you will be arriving soon in the app, at which time the shopper gets the items in the cart and ready to move to car, so little delay when you do arrive. The person bringing out groceries was friendly and made no errors with order. Free shipping is offered for many items, if not available. There were also no unexpected fees. My only issue was the online order form didn’t work for me with Chrome browser. I needed to switch to Edge browser to complete my order.
I usually don’t choose Target for groceries because of a combination of prices and lack of selection. The Walmart across the street from Target is lower priced on almost everything for comparable quality; and many grocery items that I regularly buy are not sold at Target, such as rotisserie chicken. However, Target Circle had a 25% off grocery offer today, which made prices more competitive, so I gave it a try. I bought a portion of groceries at Target, choosing items that were better buys (mostly Good & Gather products including milk, water, frozen vegetables, brown rice, bagged apples… and on-sale items). I’ll buy other things like rotisserie chicken on a separate trip to a different grocer next week.
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I’ve tried really hard to like Target recently, but literally every other grocery store has a superior selection, especially with organic food. The “boss” prefers HEB 
. Who am I to argue?
We went to Walmart recently to shop for after Christmas bargains on decorations. They don’t disappoint on price. That was until we made it to check-out. Sheesh…the cashiers might as well work by appointment. After that painful ordeal, we went home and bought a Walmart+ subscription. We can now use “scan and go” to bypass the cashier lines altogether. It’s a feature included with our Sam’s Club membership.
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I enjoy grocery shopping. I really do. During COVID I shopped for my mom and best friend too. I made it a game to get in and out in 10 minutes or less. Now I do a more leisurely shop most of the time. I have 5 different grocery chains within a 10 minute drive. The one I use most is Jewel which I can walk to. When I go to California for the winter I get a real kick out of the fact that I can walk to an Albertsons ( the corporate owner of Jewel) and it looks exactly like my store at home and my loyalty card number from my Jewel works.
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I live in a city and do not have a car – I’m a couple blocks from both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s where I shop a few times a week for produce, dairy, bread, pasta etc. I have free delivery from box stores through credit card rewards for bulk items like paper towels – even with the tip, the cost is cheaper than other options. I use Amazon for the sorts of odds and ends that would have been a Target run when I lived in the suburbs and had a car.
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I prefer making my own selections, especially fruit, produce, fish and meat. Anyone can pull a box of cereal off the shelf, but more often than not, the fruit and produce they select looks sad. As mentioned earlier, we used the “drive up and put it in the trunk” option during covid (once got the wrong groceries entirely!), used Whole foods delivery when we had broken bones and couldn’t get out, and twice used a concierge service to have the first day’s food in out condo when we were arriving for a vacation with the grands and needed some food already available (this is expensive but very handy dandy), but my s’s asked if I would use an instacart giftcard and I had to tell them… probably not.
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