more on grocery delivery

I wrote a while back about grocery delivery. I noted that it was very useful for Terry and me when we lived in Gilroy and both commuted into Silicon Valley. I said that when I started working from home delivery was no longer so important. I wrote about grocery delivery becoming available here in Hemet and stated that while it would be great for people who weren’t able to get out of the house I enjoyed doing my own shopping.

I did have occasion to use the Instacart delivery service last week when I couldn’t get out of the house. Terry had just had knee replacement surgery and I needed to be home and look after her for the first few days.

The results were mixed. The Instacart system is very sophisticated. It tracks the status of your order every step of the way. And you are in real-time text message communication with your shopper for issues as they arise. My shopper was less than the most efficient. She said that the store didn’t carry my favorite cereal when in fact it does I buy it there all the time. My personal-size frozen pizza needed a substitution, but the substituted pizza was full-size, not personal.

It seems that the system is only as good as your shopper. I did get a response to the feedback I submitted about the errors, but it was not terribly satisfying.

My feeling is unchanged. I prefer going to the store and doing my own shopping.