Ease Holiday Stress With Online Grocery Shopping By Andrew Hicks/Staff Writer
f the holidays have you stressed, put some time back in your pocket by doing your grocery shopping online, instead of standing in a checkout line. In Ponca City, we have two major online shopping players, Instacart and Walmart. I use both regularly, so I thought I would share my shopping experience so you can see how the services compare. Call me lazy. I don’t care. Instacart allows you to shop from either Homeland or Aldi with home delivery for both stores. Walmart also offers home delivery. For home delivery there are additional services fees, as well as a gratuity charge. Aldi and Walmart both have free curbside pickup. So, if you want to feel at least slightly involved in the process you can drive to the store. Both have an app you can download for Android and Apple so you can shop from anywhere.
Throw Away the Shopping List One of the greatest benefits to online grocery shopping is the ongoing shopping list. No more do I need to keep track of my needed items. When I use something, I just add it to my shopping list. Both Walmart and Instacart have the option to add items to the cart and checkout later. Both apps feature a bar code scanner so you can just scan
the bar code and add it to your list, or they have a handy search feature. No more forgetting the mustard. There are still a few kinks to make this a truly spectacular experience. I’ll dig into that a little later, but for the most part I have thrown out my shopping list.
You Pay Premium for Service Look, let’s be honest, having another person do your grocery shopping and bring them to your house is a luxury service, so you are definitely going to pay for the convenience. If you don’t want to pay the extra fees, you can opt for curbside pickup. With less fees and no gratuity, curbside pickup from Aldi or Walmart can make online grocery shopping affordable. As I mentioned, both apps allow you to input the amount of gratuity you want to pay for home delivery, but I will remind you these people are doing your grocery shopping for you and bringing it to your house. So please tip well!
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62 December 2021
