Grocery Shopping CHANGED FOREVER

A couple of weeks ago, I shared on my Facebook how I did my grocery shopping…at home…in my pj’s! And I saved a lot of money. A lot of my friends were asking for details and my thoughts on the experience, so I thought I’d write a post.

For several years, I thought in my head how cool it would be to “order” your groceries ahead of time and just pick them up at the store!

Well, Walmart heard my thoughts and now offers online grocery pick up!!!!

Some of you may have already heard of this, or even tried it yourself, but this is simply life changing for me! With 2 small children at home with me and working during their sleeping hours, grocery shopping is difficult. This is a dream come true.

I’ve tried this once and am about to put in another order. Here’s how it works:

1. Sign up an account with Walmart if you don’t already have one. You can do that here.

2. There will be a search box in the upper left corner for you to start searching for your items and adding them to your cart. You can also shop by department if you want to look at several items/brands.

3. Once you’ve selected all your items (there will be a running tally to the right of all your items, the cost, and the total amount), you will “checkout.”  One stipulation though is that it must be more than $30.00 to order online.

4. You choose your location (the nearest one for me is 15 minutes away – once you do this the first time, it’s set…but you can always change it)

5. You choose your time frame (2 hour window) to pick up. This confused me at first. Let’s say I chose 9am-11am as my pick up time. I thought I had to pick up AT 9:00. That’s not the case. They simply call you right before your pick up time (9am) to remind you that you have an order. BUT, you don’t have to pick up until any time BETWEEN 9am-11am. They suggest you call ahead 10 minutes prior to when you’ll be there so they can grab the cold items for you and pack them up (they store them in fridge until you come). If you just show up, you might have to wait a little while for those items if you don’t call ahead. No big deal if you’re not in a rush.

6. You park in the designated spot for Grocery Pick Up (it tells you on your receipt online where to go) and call the number on your receipt (they also have it on the parking sign) and tell them you’re there.

7. They bring out your groceries, have you sign the receipt, and load your car!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is no fee, you don’t have to tip, and it’s just freaking awesome!
*If there is an item on your list that was not found in the store, they will find a substitute for that item, but they tell you about it when you get there, show it to you, and you have to sign off that you approve of the switch. They will honor the cheaper price. So for example, if you wanted Great Value black beans for $0.90, but they ran out and sub’d Bush’s beans for $1.30, you would only pay the $0.90. I’m pretty sure it goes the other way around as well.

My thoughts on the process…

Obviously, I am a big fan. The idea that I don’t have to go into a store with my kids and pick out each item while yelling at my 4 year old to stay in the cart (or come back because we ran out of room in the said cart and now he’s running away) or find food, treats, or toys to stuff in my 1 year old’s face so he stops crying or whining, is reason enough to do this. I’d probably even pay a service fee.

I am the worst at getting items I do not need while at the store. Shopping online allows me to choose the things I need and not overbuy. I love the fact that it shows you your total as your adding items. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten to the register and said, “Oh crap, what did I buy?” On the flip side, this also isn’t good when I truly do see something I forgot to add to my list while at the store, but was reminded when I walked by. I’m sure I buy more that I don’t need than things I forgot. 🙂

I love the time frame option so you are not locked into a set pick up time, but it gives you 2 hours to pick up. Winter months are especially nice because I don’t have to get the kids out.

A lot of people asked me about the produce…things that “they” have to use good judgement on and pick FOR you. I was impressed. It’s winter right now, so most fruit isn’t very good anyway (I didn’t order a ton of fruit), but the fruit they did give me was great. I told my husband, they must have a secret stash in the back of good fruit. I’ve only been once though, so we’ll see if this continues. I get a lot of my produce at Sprouts though if I need to. I’m sure if you were unhappy about it, Walmart would refund you.  Oh and you can’t choose a number of produce, for example, 5 apples.  You shop by weight.  I don’t like that, but I usually get at least a pound of something, so I just chose that, unless I needed more.  There might be a way to select an amount vs. weight, but I couldn’t figure it out if there was.

The only cons to this process are the fact that you can’t look at labels while you shop online (I suppose you could Google it if you really wanted to) and they don’t offer it at every Walmart. The Walmart I shop at is 1 mile from my house, but the store I have to use for online shopping is 15 minutes away. It’s not bad, but would be great if my Walmart started offering this service. I still save SO MUCH time even traveling the extra distance 🙂 And I save a lot of melt downs and embarrassing moments! And bonus for saving money, at least for me.

Y’all, I cannot explain the sheer beauty of this service for moms or dads who do the grocery shopping.  I know I have some followers who are NOT fans of Walmart (some of you are passionate about your distaste for them), but this service has just opened up more time for me to spend with my family! Love it.

Have any of you tried this service?  What are you thoughts?  Any tips you can give?

This was NOT a sponsored post…just wanted to share it!