Then I remembered Stop & Shop's Peapod. It's been around for a few years, I think, but wasn't available in my area when I looked it up last summer. I checked again while I was sick, and they were offering it. Yay!!
Yay until I picked out a few things I needed and tried to submit my order. That's when I found out that there's a $50 minimum. That's in addition to the $9.95 delivery charge and a fuel surcharge.
I was desperate, though, and I really needed some of these things. I decided to take advantage of the fact that someone else would be carrying these things for me, and made up the difference by ordering lots of bulky or heavy things that are often a nuisance to lug between the car in the house.
My next surprise was that I wasn't able to get delivery until the next day. The next evening, in fact. (I was placing my order around noon.) And the website enthusiastically endorses tipping, which suggests to me that they're not paying their workers enough.
Under the circumstances, I decided to go ahead and do it, but Peapod was not at all what I had imagined. I thought it was going to be an old-fashioned kind of delivery service, where you'd place an order for a few urgent items, then someone would pack it and deliver it, and that'd be it.
In short, I don't recommend Peapod if:
- Your budget is tight
- You don't need much stuff
- You need something in a hurry
- You can get out of the house in the next 36 hours
My order did show up within the 3-hour window they predicted, and the order was complete and correct. But I can't imagine that I would ever do this again. The only reason I can think of that I might use Peapod again is if I were planning a party, then suddenly became too busy to shop. Then I'd be very glad to be able to skip that step and have all the food delivered to my door.
It's probably also nice for a big family that goes through groceries very quickly, and has money to burn. I don't know anyone like that. For the amount I paid for delivery, fuel, and tip, I probably could have bought most of the things I had really needed in the first place. Just not while I was coughing my head off.
Useful Spanish of the day
una propina
(a tip)
I should mention that Peapod's online ordering system is very impressive. You can enter a makeshift shopping list at the beginning (like "Coke, bananas, bread"), and then Peapod will walk you through that list one item at a time, showing you its best-guess matches. That was a big improvement over what I had expected - I thought I would have to search for each item myself.
ReplyDeleteFYI: Unless you moved, we live in the same city. And Stop & Shop, Shaw's and Rite Aid happen to be on my way home from work. If you are desperate again, I'll gladly deliver. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sara. James offered too. The thing was that I had started making a list, and it got embarrassingly long. I needed sick food (I didn't have any at all) PLUS drugs PLUS other supplies... I was really unprepared to get sick.
ReplyDeleteI usually keep a lot of everything on hand, but a lot of busy-stuff came up that week, and then the stores closed earlier than I expected on xmas eve.
I was annoyed to think that I was going to have to waste the 26th, my big day off, running mundane errands. But I was even more annoyed when I had to spend the day in bed, and ended up burning through 24 hours of "vacation" time.