groceries at your doorstep

Boy, the blogging dry spell continues. At least I can explain away a week: we went on vacation! To Hawaii! Our first trip there since our honeymoon 10 years ago. Eight days of swimming, snorkeling, sunscreen, and shave ice with the kids and our good friends.

Before I go on vacation, I always try to empty out the fridge. We grabbed milk and oj at 6:30 am on the way home from the airport, but a la Old Mother Hubbard, we really needed to load up on groceries. What a perfect time to test out Vons Home Grocery Delivery service!

It was really easy to register online with Vons, and it was relatively easy to find everything. I used a combination of their Shop by Aisle feature along with just looking up the groceries I knew I wanted. For example, I know they sell O Organics Banana-Vanilla yogurt, but when I tried to find it using Search by Aisle, I couldn't. When I simply queried, "banana yogurt," it was the first result. Vons automatically applies their club card pricing, which is a bonus.

It was fun shopping online, definitely made my first day back easier because I could eliminate one key errand, and the groceries were delivered within the promised delivery window. As a perq, I received gift cards to try this service. I also got a promotional code for free delivery and $7 off my first order which I get to share with you! Just type "night" in the promotional code box at checkout.

Just a few other comments:
- They did a pretty good job selecting produce and following my specific requests, though the purple cabbage they picked is about as big as my head. The substitutions were reasonable and the total bill came to just a few dollars more than estimated.

- Unfortunately, I was too late to place a same-day order. With an empty fridge, this meant I still had to run to the store for a few essentials and place my order for the next day. But knowing that, I could deal with it next time.

- My biggest beef was that the groceries were delivered in a zillion plastic bags. I've gotten really fond of using my own shopping bags. Also, the delivery guy had everything loaded in two crates (with no one else's groceries), so I'm not sure why they had to bag the groceries at all. I'd recommend either they just load stuff in the crates - which would mean they could pack the groceries more efficiently - or use paper bags. In certain cases, they put just one item in a plastic bag. For a standard grocery run, which probably would have required 3 reusable bags, they gave me eleven.

I actually really like grocery shopping - I have been known to go a few times a week - so I probably won't change my ways. But Vons Home Grocery Delivery service is definitely worth a try (especially with free delivery!), and I'm glad I had a chance.

Comments

Gwyn said…
Vons Park Here!

On a trip to SoCal as a kid, we stopped at a shopping center, which had signs everywhere "Vons Park Here." Not knowing what Vons was, my sister and I naturally thought this was an invitation to an alien population of Vons.
running around with 3 little ones-- this sounds heavenly! this was a very well done review of something that, for whatever reason, sounds oh-so-very pampering-ish to me! :)