Why choose grocery delivery?
I’ve been shopping for our groceries online since early 2020. You know. When everything closed. At first, I did curbside pick up. Oh that is so easy! I loved the convenience of getting online and adding things to my cart. Scheduling a pick up time. Picking up curbside was a breeze… until it wasn’t. At first, there was no waiting. But as the weeks passed by, the line to pick up started to form. Eventually there was up to an hour wait for my own timeslot. I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as when I first started curbside pickup.
I decided to give home delivery a try. That was convenient. I didn’t like the delivery fees plus a tip for the driver. Adding nearly $20 to my grocery shopping haul seemed like a luxury. I went back to curbside. In January 2022 I saw an ad to try Walmart+ for home delivery free with a one month trial. I gave it a shot. I didn’t experience any issues during the one month trial, so I went ahead and signed up for the year.
My experience with Walmart home delivery after 50 home deliveries.
I have loved having my groceries delivered. I get online, fill my cart. Choose my delivery time, and how I want them to deliver.
I can choose to sign for the delivery, or choose to have porch delivery. Either way, I get a text message notifying me my delivery is on the way. I chose contactless delivery.
In my 50 home deliveries over the past few months, I’ve experienced a few issues. Very few. Walmart is so easy to work with if there is an issue with the delivery. I was skeptical about how it all worked, but it’s so easy and quick. I had a bag of sweet potatoes, and 3 of them were squishy. Walmart refunded the entire bag. Refunds are so easy. You log into your account, click on the order, and right there on the page is a link for returns and refunds.
Today I had an issue with my order. Nine of my 32 items were missing. I mean, how does that happen? Well, we all know someone who has left the grocery store and forgotten a few things. Right? I’m not sure if this happened at the store, or if it happened with the delivery driver. I know from experience, the drivers usually pick up more than one delivery when they are out doing deliveries. It’s a possibility a bag of my groceries got mixed up with another order. I don’t know. What I do know is this. I logged into my account, and easily clicked on refunds. Checked off the items missing from my order, and refund is already being processed.
Substitutions and my experience at Walmart
Sometimes when I place my order, the items are available. Occasionally the store runs out of items before my items are shopped. I always receive a text there will be substitutions. There is time to log in, check out the substitutions, and make changes if you don’t like what they have substituted for your items. In my experience, the substitutions have been fine. Usually a different brand or a different size. Today I ordered one 16 ounce package of cheese, but they were out of 16 ounce, so they filled my order with two 8 ounce packages of cheese.
I try to always get online and check substitutions, but occasionally I haven’t had an opportunity to check them out before my order is shopped. Usually the substitutions make perfect sense. However, there are those rare occasions… One of my substitutions just made me question what the person shopping was thinking. Most of us know what a Cadbury cream egg is. Right? Well, I ordered two of them. Apparently they were out at the store, so I was given a substitution. The shopper substituted a regular foil wrapped chocolate egg. Hollow. What?! You obviously haven’t had a Cadbury cream egg. Or you are just cruel. If you knew what a Cadbury cream egg is, you would have known we would never, ever want a hollow chocolate egg as a substitute! Walmart refunded for that. Another substitution made was instant oatmeal in place of the old fashion oatmeal. So that doesn’t happen in the future, I go in before paying and check the items I do not want substituted.
Tip the delivery person? I do.
With Walmart the tip is automatically added to the order. However, you can customize the tip, leaving the amount you feel is appropriate. My orders are usually fairly small. I always leave at least $2 per mile they have to drive from store to my house. If my order is larger, I leave more, as they have to run back and forth between their car and my porch. It just depends. It also depends on the driver, did they take care to place items carefully on my porch? Can I step down out of the house to pick up the items, or did they leave it right in front of the door so I have to basically jump over the stuff to get down the first step? Goodness… that has happened. I’ve had a couple of really considerate delivery people, so I’ve added to their tip, after they have delivered my groceries. With Walmart, its an option, and easy to add money to the tip. You don’t have to tip, but I figure they are saving me the hassle and time of going to the store, and driving time. So I do tip.
Would I sign up for Walmart+ again?
Oh for sure! Walmart is not my first choice of places to shop for produce, but since I’ve signed up for Walmart+ I’ve been happy with most every one of my purchases. I enjoy the benefits of free delivery on all items sold by Walmart. I have used the service quite a few times. If you sign up for Walmart+ you need to be aware of and pay attention to the deliver / shipping cost in your cart. Walmart has other sellers on their website. I think it is somewhat like Amazon for sellers. So if you put something in your cart, pay attention to the shipping. Other than that, it’s been a great help to my little family of me and my stroke survivor husband. We don’t get out and about often, so home delivery of our groceries is a huge benefit to me.