Grocery Shopping: Online vs In-Store

Hi-de-hi Peeps!

I’ll just do this first to get it out of the way: IT’S 9 WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!

anyhoo, now I’ve got that out of my system, let’s talk shop.

A lot of people think I’m nuts (well I am, but not because of this! 😉 ) for shopping online when you can see the supermarket from the end of our road…. but I have my reasons.

1. I have a saved list of regular items saved already, so I can just click those into my basket…saves loads of time.
2. The store here is small and the deliveries come from a bigger one further away… beware of local/express/metro stores as they tend to not stock the value stuff as much and it can even be pricier if they do!
3. I can stick to my budget: I have a running total on my basket down the side and can see how I’m doing.
4. No temptations from browsing. The checkout is the only danger zone online as they will show offers then, but as you can see your total cost, just click continue before you get sucked in.
5. I can shop how I think: If I want pasta and tomatoes for a recipe, I’ll think of them and shop for that meal at the same time…in the store that would be nearly impossible as that’s like a 5 aisle dash from pasta to fruit; I’d be exhausted.

As you can see I love shopping online, but sceptical people always throw the following questions at me:

1. Are the fruit and veg fresh? I have had one or two items a bit bruised, but generally, if you would happily shop in their store for f&v then it’ll be as fresh as if you’d picked it. They pick your order on that morning of the delivery day.
2. Don’t you get bad substitutes? Stand-up comedy has done this no favours but that aside, I have heard rumours of others getting wrong things it just hasn’t happened to me. You can refuse any substitutions if you don’t like them. Quite often it works in our favour; last week I ordered a big bag of brown rice, they brought 2 smaller ones which weighed more than one big one and then sent me a voucher for the price difference! extra rice and 30p off next lot 🙂
3. Isn’t it expensive? Well not if you shop smart. Some slots are pricier than others, up to £7.50, but I just pick the next £1 slot (or cheapest I can at the time I want). I never pay more than £3. While I wouldn’t pay that to get to my store, it’d cost me about a tenner to go to the big one that the deliveries come from. You can also buy 6 or 12-month passes or save vouchers/points for deliveries to make it cheaper.
4. Isn’t it complicated? No, not really. It’s like any online account, it takes a while to set up but once you get going it actually saves time. I order it in under 30minutes, pick a time when I’m home and spend under 10 minutes receiving what could take me 1.5-2 hours to find and transport from the store.

 

So if you want to try I recommend it, but if you’d rather shop yourself then go ahead. 🙂 I just wanted to share what works for us at the moment.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Anna x

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