06 Sep
Supermarkets vs Shopping Online
I am a huge fan of buying groceries online. I generally don’t like the hassle of supermarket shopping and it saves time, time which I can then spend working, blogging or doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions, whatever I feel like. Depending on your location, many large supermarket chains now offer such a service.
Advantages of grocery shopping online:
- Time saved. No driving, parking, venturing into the crowded supermarket, wrestling with the broken trolley, loading your car with bags, returning home only to repeat the next week
- Saving your shopping list in the system so it is ready for next time, like magic
- Searching for items using a search box, instead of idly wheeling a trolley down numerous aisles looking for the turmeric
- Low delivery fees. Usually just $10-$15 depending on where you live
- Easy access to the list of Specials and bypassing the usual tempting tricks of chocolate bars and trashy magazines at the checkout
- Can order in advance and choose date and time of delivery
Disadvantages of grocery shopping online
- Brand recognition issues. You know you like the cookies in the purple sparkly packaging, but what are they called?
- Size issues. It’s hard to tell from the thumbnail image how big the bag of flour is and you struggle with measurements, metric or otherwise
- Not eco-friendly. You can’t use reusable shopping bags - what would Al Gore say?
- Lack of control. You don’t get to manually pick your own fruit/veges etc although they usually do a good job of that, I find
- Not interacting with people. I’ve read that supermarkets can be a great place to potentially meet the love of your life if you’re single. Although there is the delivery man… and perhaps you just don’t like people or are agoraphobic, in which case this would be in the ‘pro’ list for you
Have you/would you shop at a virtual supermarket?
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Posted
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Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
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I live in a place where there are supermarkets galore couple minutes from my doorstep, so, no, I wouldn’t consider online shopping. Even if the nearest supermarket was miles away, and I lived in some remote town, I’d probably go in person just to see/be around a crowd every now & then.
September 6th, 2007 at 11:45 pm“doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions”
That should be included in your next video post
I personally have never grocery shopped online, but considering I can’t drive, I really should.
They can be difficult with pickups though. The only supermarket near us has a “Delivery between 1pm-6pm” limit. I’m usually at work! :S
September 6th, 2007 at 11:54 pmi have yet to use an online supermarket, i enjoy the hustle and bustle of the regular supermarket. sometimes there are even locals selling their own handmade goodies that you wouldn’t be able to purchase normally online.
i also agree with Rhys, you should definitely do a video-cast of your Arnold impressions. as a new resident of California it would brighten my day immensely
September 7th, 2007 at 8:56 amI’m too conscious of being indexed in search engines doing bad quotes.:) You’ll have to use your imagination:
“It’s naaht a too-mah!”
September 7th, 2007 at 9:51 amWho is your daddy, and what does he do?
September 7th, 2007 at 1:21 pmAfter our twins were born, getting out of the house was a challenge. I employed many home-delivery solutions from diaper service to grocery delivery. During that time the grocery service was a very small start-up and they delivered my groceries using their personal car and a bunch of ice coolers. I enjoyed shopping online. It was fun for me. Like playing on the internet and then all this great stuff arrived at my door. I do think, however, that it’s a convenience for those that cannot, for whatever reason, get “out” to their own market. I obviously stopped using the service when I no longer needed it. I want to mention that my delivery boy was so cute, and one day my daughter yelled from the top of the staircase, “My mom thinks you’re CUTE!”. It was soon after that I started going to the store on my own.
September 7th, 2007 at 3:54 pmI’ve used the online grocery delivery service a couple of times. I think it is a time saver and would help with budgeting and not buying non essentials. I’m just to lazy to plan it in advance. But maybe when I get more organized I’ll give it another shot. Great post!
September 7th, 2007 at 6:14 pmI work in a supermarket so know where everything is on the shelves, this makes shopping there really easy for me. Also in Australia most supermarkets have a map available at the service desk so that you can check where things are and plan your shopping list accordingly. This works for me as I start at one end of the store and go through the aisles only once with no backtracking. As I don’t drive I take advantage of the home delivery option as well. I did once look into on-line shopping but chose not to pursue it as their brand choices seemed limited. For instance 15 types of cat food but they were all “Whiskas”.
September 10th, 2007 at 8:36 pmRight now I really don’t mind shopping in the grocery store, but I could see that wearing off after doing it for another 10 years+ every Sunday. Anyhow, I have been checking and none of the grocery stores in my area (Orlando, FL) are offering home delivery that I am aware of. We shop pretty much exclusively at Publix (very clean/comfortable store) and I have not seen anything about them offering at home delivery. For me it would have to be a fairly competitive price to pay for the convenience. I once read they were test marketing a wholesale club (Sam’s/Costco type) that would allow you to order all your purchases online and then just show up at the store at a given time and it would be boxed and ready for pickup. That would be very convenient for me.
September 15th, 2007 at 1:03 amI LOVE shopping online! I’m on a mission to convince everyone of it’s merits. And I am a person who used to get some satisfaction from going to the grocery store but the money I save from avoiding impulse buys (the store designers are quite clever), getting everything I need b/c when I’m wondering if I need milk I can go in the fridge and check, and not the mention the time saved (sure I enjoy grocery shopping but I still have better uses of my time). Anyway, glad to see someone else championing the cause!
October 26th, 2007 at 8:01 am