Whole Foods is about a 20 minute drive from our house, so not far away. It was Sunday night and I was not looking forward to going grocery shopping the next day. Just the thought of trying to find all the items that I wanted was intimidating. We had a large list. I have never shopped at the Whole Foods store and this is the first time I have used an online service to order groceries. I chose Whole Foods because I was looking for mostly organic items such as fruits, vegetables, and grass fed meats. The hard part was making a list of all the items we wanted. Fortunately Amazon Prime had us covered with free delivery from our local Whole Foods.
I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to pick items, place the order, and have them delivered straight to my door. We did have some issues when checking out. It would not let us get our groceries delivered between 7 and 9 am even though there were openings. However, it did let us pick the next time slot 9-11am. Maybe our order was too large for what Whole Foods deemed comfortable to ensure that it would arrive on time. We had 67 items on our list.
As an Amazon Prime member we were eligible for free 2-hour shipping. We ordered Sunday evening and set the delivery for Monday morning. The process of adding items to our cart could not have been any easier. As with other items on Amazon, you can read reviews and view similar products. This was quite helpful in deciding on some items since we’re new to Whole Foods and organic options in general. Also, if you have an Amazon Prime Rewards Visa card then make sure to use it as you will earn 5% back with your purchase.
Communication with the shopper was done through text. I received a text when they started shopping at 6:45am and another when they were done. The shopper texted if an item was not available and asked if another similar product was acceptable. I did accept a different brand of spice but when it came to the meat I declined the replacement. The next item that wasn’t available was automatically declined. It did not give me an option to accept a similar product. We sent a message to our shopper through the Amazon site asking for a replacement but wasn’t sure that they had picked up the item since they were done shopping within the next 10 minutes. Much to our surprise they did get the item. I received another text when our groceries left the store and were on their way.
All our items arrived in cooling bags or brown paper bags. Some were labeled with what items they contained, like eggs or glass for instance. The driver pulled up into our driveway, unloaded the bags onto our porch then texted that our groceries had been delivered and left. We received one final text to rate our experience.
I opened all our bags and sorted through our order checking off each item to make sure everything matched and was delivered. I checked the produce for freshness. It all seemed great except the butternut squash had a small dime size rotten place on it that was easily cut out when used. The meat was fresh, looked beautiful, and when cooked was absolutely delicious.
How was our experience? I’ve always been a little leary of having someone else pick my food. That’s exactly why I haven’t used any grocery delivery services until this point. Not everyone shops the same and honestly I’m picky when choosing my food. I have observed shoppers for other grocery stores and even spoke to several on how they pick items. I was very happy with the overall experience and will definitely be ordering again soon.
