There have been conversations wondering about how many changes (online grocery ordering, carry-out dining) might become permanent habits. I was saying exactly what you confirmed, Yvonne...there is no real downside to online grocery shopping (because for most folks it is a chore) and the stores are going to suffer some degree of loss because there is no impulse buying. Maybe Walmart will be an exception, because you can buy non-grocery items, since you're "placing an order, anyway."
I love going grocery shopping, and just browsing through the store, looking for closeout sales. Bobby (being a man) hates doing this, and wants to get there get the stuff, and get back home, as FAST as possible. Who knows why, but that seems to be a guy thing, it seems like. Since Bobby does the driving now, we only go shopping together. By doing my shopping online, I can browse as long as I want, although I can’t find the closeout deals anymore, and then we just make a fast trip to the store and back, to bring them home. I have been wishing for a small car, and then I could be out and about on my own again, but I think that is not in my future, after all. We have the big GMC truck of Robin’s, and it has just gotten to be a larger vehicle than I want to drive anymore.
I like to grocery shop as well, and enjoy browsing the rest of the store...to a degree. When it comes to clothes, I'm like Bobby...I go there to buy, not to shop. or some reason I shop on all other stuff. Clothes are no fun.
Fed up with Amazon's slow deliveries, I was going to place an order from the Walmart site but two of the 6-7 items I was going to buy were available only by pickup at one of their stores, so I didn't complete the order. If I have to drive to a store in another town to pick it up, then I'll go inside and actually look at what I'm buying. It's back to Amazon, I guess.
Am SO glad that I did not get the Walmart+ membership ! The last few times we have ordered groceries for pickup, the produce was terrible, but you can’t know that until you get home and have it unpacked. I wrote and complained, but it does absolutely no good. This last time, I got 2 of the personal sized watermelons, one was moldy and dripping on the bottom by the next day, and the other one looked fine; but was all mush inside. The cucumbers are slimy, the lettuce is brown inside, and I have had some really terrible tomatoes. We went to Aldi’s for our produce today, and even though Bobby hates grocery shopping, he hates listening to me complain about bad produce even worse. I will probably still use walmart pickup for canned and boxed items, but i am not apt to buy my produce there if it can be avoided. I totally miss our trips to Sam’s Club ! Even though they are owned by Walmart, their produce quality has always been excellent. This is a tomato that came out of one of those “on the vine” packages, and this is how it looked when we brought it home. Obviously, walmart does not care what their produce is like (someone had to stock that ), and the shoppers do not even look either. I can understand that they pick out the smallest items, so they do not have to carry it (although that makes me mad, too), but someone should be doing quality checks. This has happened at both of the Walmart stores that we go to, so it is not just one store doing this.
Yuck, how disgusting, Yvonne. I have occasionally gotten unacceptable produce with my grocery deliveries, but usually it's a tasteless cantaloupe or whatever... nothing furry!! I call the store and they give me a credit on the spot, but I'm dealing with HEB supermarket and not Walmart.
I have never much cared for Walmart's produce section. I haven't gotten moldy stuff but that's because we bought it at the store, but everything I have gotten from Walmart was near tasteless.
I agree with all the comments regarding Walmart produce. That's why I make a 50 mile weekly round trip to Aldi and Kroeger in Charlottesville to buy my produce...at least my weekly salad fixings. I did not feel like making the drive today so I went into town to Food Lion. They are better than Walmart (although they are not consistent) but still not top-tier. @Yvonne Smith Have you been on Walmart's website lately? I was on last night and they've rolled out a change. I detest it. I told them so in a Customer Service box that popped up. It looks as though you need to create an account (I already have one) and log in so as to see what's in stock versus the stuff you have to order. And it seems you can no longer check inventory in surrounding stores...just the one Home Store in your account. I hope I'm wrong and just don't know how to navigate the new site properly.
There's no way I'm coughing up $119 a yr for something I don't use. Or $98 a yr for a place I haven't shopped in since the pandemic started.
The only produce that I buy is the bananas.....the tomatoes picture are in every store around here. Every time I've bought them, I regretted it because they are either rotten or there's much inedible pulp that it's a waste of money to buy them.
We have decided to give the Walmart+ another try. As long as I am not ordering fresh produce, the items from Walmart are fine; so we will either get produce from Sam’s Club or from Aldi’s . Walmart has updated their shopping app, so it now shows items that can be shipped as well as items that can be delivered or picked up, and some of those are great prices. For example, a gallon of red wine vinegar that was around $30 on Amazon is under $7 from Walmart. You can order food, clothes, or whatever items you want for either pickup or delivery, and the ones that have to be shipped, will be shipped free with the Walmart+. Usually, we stop on our way home from the fitness center and pick up the grocery order; but with winter and bad weather coming soon, we might like to have the orders delivered if the weather is bad and we are not going to the fitness center. When I made the order this time, Walmart sent me an email that the corn bread mix was available at one of the other stores, so they will send that out as a delivery to me today, instead of shipping it to me. It is going to take a while for me to get used to using the Walmart+; but I think that we might be able to get some of the things we order from Amazon, and get them cheaper from Walmart (like the vinegar was), and there are a lot of food items that are not carried in the store, but can be shipped out. I am going to try it for a couple of months and see how it works out, and if we are using it, then I will pay for the year membership because it is a lot cheaper than monthly.
Here between reservations, I get my fruit and produce from Sprouts. I joined Walmart plus but wish I had not. I've cancelled more orders than I've bought because of substitutions or going to checkout before I was ready to check out or some other reason.
I don't do amazon prime. I get enough purchases together to make the $25 for free delivery. Sometimes it takes a couple of days. I don't have an account at walmart.com. The only problem is it is a bit difficult to return stuff--not impossible. I try not to browse at the stores. I have always been a prepper even before it was in. Pandemics are not a problem. But there is not much material-wise that I need. I go to thrift stores and get in trouble buying there cuz of the good deals. Aldis was great but it is moving on and getting pricier to cover new freezers, expansions etc. Yesterday I drove to New Holstein, about 1/2 hour away to get feed for winter. Our local feed store is getting nuts as far as prices. Cracked corn is full of ground cob. Animals don't want to eat the pelleted feed so much. Not taking responsibility for bad produce, or basically anything, raising prices, sort of is a reflection of how things are going nationally maybe.
Wal-Mart doesn't deliver much up here, so it is useless to me. There is a large Wal-Mart about 30 minutes away, and it sells lots of stuff--some stuff I can't get anywhere else here. We never buy produce there, however. The produce we buy comes from a local Kroger affiliate, and most of our meat is purchased from a local retailer (Alaska-based), although we do buy bacon at Kroger.