Focus

What to Know Before You Try Grocery Pickup

September 16, 2022

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Summary:

In this article, Emily covers the most general basics of what it’s like as a customer to order groceries for pickup and reasons as to why a customer would or would not use the service with the biggest, and most obvious, reason for using it being saving time. Customers might not want to use the service for produce or meats in order to have the right quality. They also might not want to use the service if on a budget as that means the customer doesn’t have the opportunity to compare in-store deals, and because there are pickup charges through some companies.

Emily details further what charges could be depending on the company used. She compares Amazon, Walmart, Aldi, and Target since they are big box companies most people know of. She also mentions how regional or local grocery stores typically have higher rates. Some grocery stores also impose rates based off the dollar amount of the order which seems to be at a consensus of $35 for the charge to disappear or be lowered. At the end of the article, she highlights that most grocery stores prohibit workers from taking tips and tells readers not to bother considering it as an additional cost.

She also highlights the importance of time. Ordering groceries saves the customer time, but the time slots for pickup must be adhered to as different companies have different rules on being late or missing a time slot. If groceries are ordered or to be picked up when the grocery store is busy, it will lengthen the amount of time it takes for the customer to receive those groceries. “Busy times” consist of holidays (like the 4th of July) and specified days of the week (like weekends) when grocery stores are typically busy. A customer could have to wait anywhere from 2-6 hours to even just pickup their order, and they could also have to wait a considerable amount of time in the pickup spot waiting for the employees to bring their order to them if that isn’t accounted for.

Analysis:

This article outlines what a customer needs to think about in order to even use the grocery pickup service as well as making them decide if the service is even right for them to use. She ends the article by saying that a customer shouldn’t use grocery pickup if their concern is money but should use grocery pickup if their concern is time. This seems rather generalized based on the specifics she listed herself.

She explains that pickup service might not be useful if on a budget when adding up the possible pickup charge (depending on the store), the inability to compare deals, and the possibility of produce or meats not being up to standard. Not all stores utilize a pickup fee and the ones that do typically forgo it if the customer spends $35. With how much grocery prices are skyrocketing, that isn’t a hard mark to hit. In addition, some companies allow you to see deals online while ordering, so that point only works for some companies as well. If saving time rather than money is the deal, then she feels grocery pickup is the right choice but only if done right by considering grocery store busy times. Customers might not have time to shop for groceries but might also not have time to wait six hours to pick them up. They also might not have over a half an hour to wait for an employee to get their groceries out to them and packed in the vehicle.

The information on how grocery pickup works, and what the concerns are, from a customers perspective is useful but not so much the generalization of who should use it.