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Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

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Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#151

Post by linsomniac »

I guess I'm in the minority, but I've been chomping at the bit for curbside pickup of groceries for years. Our local stores finally started offering it around 6 months ago and it's been our primary method of shopping since then.

We've had pretty good luck as far as produce goes. I think 4-5 things have been bad, to various degrees. But even then, it has saved a TON of time, even if I go in and pick the things I'm particular about. I'd say 95% or more is to the quality I would pick, 4% is "passable", and 1% has been "straight into the trash". The stores have never had a problem crediting us on any mistakes.

It saves me probably an hour a week, plus there's reduced "impulse buying".

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#152

Post by jandrese »

skywhopper wrote: post #90
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…

Yep. This has been our experience as well. Not only do the pickers have no incentive to do a good job (and often aren't even trained in how to judge the produce and meat they are selecting); and not only do mind-boggling substitutions take place sometimes; but in just about every online grocery order we've made in the past two months (so about 10 times by this point), we've gotten some items that were just plain wron…

Oh yeah. We tried the Costco delivery thing once, but discovered that the "substitutions allowed" option is basically "fuck my shit up Fam".

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#153

Post by linsomniac »

One huge cognitive benefit of it is: When I'm in the kitchen and use the last of something, or it's getting close, I open up the app, scan the barcode (or search if I don't have the code), and it just shows up in the next grocery run with no further thought.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#155

Post by jandrese »

nemacol wrote: post #13

"Allow substitutions" is the risky click of 2020.

I love it when you have two 10lb bags of sugar on the list, and because you left "allow substitutions" checked you get two 50lb bags instead. I can understand if you have to sub in the more expensive organic version, but the complete inability to use common sense drives me crazy.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#156

Post by mdesq »

bane wrote: post #48

We decided to order a bunch of things from Costco a few weeks ago through instacart. Actually we decided to do it before then, but the site was broken for a bit. It was crazy expensive. Not only the delivery fee, the tip, etc. But every item was marked up significantly over the in-store price, with no indication that was the case. We even pulled out some old receipts to verify this price difference. Apparently part o…

Shipt does the same thing for some stores they deliver from. They claim something like a 15% markup average, but in reality from our own experimentation on items we most frequently purchased, it often hit 35-100% markups and higher. (Actual examples: a $5 watermelon for $12; a dozen store brand eggs $0.99 in the store but $2.99 from Shipt). Add tips and it's rarely worth it for us anymore.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#157

Post by kube-system »

floatingatoll wrote: post #99

I actively mistrust grocery delivery, because between when I place my order for items in stock and the hours-to-day when they pick my items off the shelf, I'm seeing on average 10-20% of my items being listed as "out of stock" or being offered inappropriate substitutes. This issue is compounded by the delivery service I'm using refusing to handle "replacement items" requests — if 'garlic' is out and they offer 'garli…

I've had Instacart workers make pretty good substitutions that weren't even in the app's automated list of replacements. They marked my original item OOS and added the new items as an "adjustment", so these judgement calls are at least something that is possible for them to do.

The issue is that YMMV with the worker you get on any particular occasion.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#158

Post by hinkley »

klyrs wrote: post #128
hinkley wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not justifying it, but try dewatering the yogurt and see if that does anything for your savory dishes. I don't think I have the right gauge of strainer and end up using leftover coffee filters.

It's the sugar and vanilla flavoring that I find offensive -- are you suggesting that both would be addressed by dewatering? I can imagine it taking care of the sugar (with several washings, I suppose?) since it's water soluble, but I think that the vanilla would be irredeemably dissolved into the milkfat. Alas, I've gone back to shopping due to these experiences, so I've got a tub of the good stuff already. So on on…

My theory being that drained yogurt has a sharper flavor, it may or may not mask the unwelcome flavors.

I had to double-check. The carb content of the 'water' you drive off (whey) is pretty high. I couldn't say one way or the other how much of the added sugar comes out with the whey, but I suspect a taste test will tell you. If you're stuck at home anyway it's worth a go.

It's good to have an arsenal of substitutions for dishes.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#159

Post by Enginerrrd »

moosey wrote: post #145
asiachick wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This car has dents but those don't matter. Full price for you. Car still gets you from a to b just fine. This jacket has some holes and few stains but it will still keep you warm.

Effectively, there is no difference between an apple and one with a bruise. I still get the same nutrition and taste, most other differences being unimportant. A jacket with a hole has massive loss of effectiveness, and I don't receive a new jacket to wear each day. A car with a dent has significant loss of value, not that it's something I'm terribly concerned with, I run all cars until they die.

>Effectively, there is no difference between an apple and one with a bruise. I still get the same nutrition and taste, most other differences being unimportant.

That's simply not true. The bruises become rot spots and before getting there they introduce oxidation which affects taste. The shelf life is then also diminished not only for the bruised apple, but for any that are nearby.

Relatively speaking, I think the bruise on an apple is actually a measurably greater decrease in (relative) value than the dents in a car.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#160

Post by kube-system »

elicash wrote: post #84

I still think the design of these apps can be dramatically improved. I just fired up Instacart now for my local grocery store and searched for eggs. Featured was a dozen eggs for $4.59 (why featured?), and I'm not sure why that's featured when it's a terrible price. I see my normal eggs at $1.99, but then I can get the "store choice" (not sure what that means... it's not that the grocery store owns the brand) 18 coun…

> Featured was a dozen eggs for $4.59 (why featured?), and I'm not sure why that's featured when it's a terrible price.

That's exactly why it's featured. This is no different than being in an actual grocery store. All the high markup items get the premium shelf space too. And stores often have the same meaningless signage on their shelves as well: "Look!", "Wow!", "Special Offer!", heck even some just literally say "Promotion!".

They want you to look at that product, and you did, so it worked exactly as they intended.

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