The author of this article used Peapod’s service six or seven times with mixed results.
On the good side…
They really do deliver when they say they will. One time our order was late (by only 10 or 20 minutes), but our driver called two hours in advance to let us know that our groceries were going to be late! It’s also possible for them to leave the bags when you’re not home, if you select that option when ordering.
The drivers have all be courteous.
It’s a wonderful luxury not to haul groceries to and from the car.
After using the service a couple times, you get a very good feel for the layout of the online super market. Consequently, it’s much faster to shop than a brick and mortar store.
I always start now by calling up my personal combined list (everything I’ve ever bought previously). That way I am able to click on all my regular items very quickly. Then I locate the unique items for that week that I want to buy.
They have some wonderful prepared foods and appetizers. I recently enjoyed their delicious crab and lobster bisque and often order their succulent, heat and serve, beef pot roast.
Peapod does accept coupons, so you clippers can be happy. You just give them to your driver and your charge or debit is adjusted to reflect their value.
If an item is left out of your order, they immediately deduct that from your bill. This happened to us only one time with one item.
It is extremely convenient!
On the “not so good” side…
I don’t recommend purchasing fragile produce. While everything arrives in good condition, we have found that produce items such as bananas, apples, etc. brown faster than those from our local supermarket.
In your online shopping, you can not determine the expiration or “sell by” date. We usually do not freeze fresh meat, but there were a couple items that expired within a couple days, so we had to freeze those before we had time to use everything. This isn’t a problem if you use your freezer more often than we do. Another alternative, of course, is to just order enough fresh foods to use within three or so days.
Their selection is not as wide as I expected it to be. For example, they carry only one or two brands of certain items, although they do have the dominant brands.
We had one instance in which a chunk of dry ice had fallen into one of our plastic bag of items. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, my other half reached into the bag and pulled it out without realizing what it was. Dry ice can be dangerous. (We complained about it, and they gave us a coupon for our next order, which was not what I was looking for.)
Pricing…
Prices of most items are competitive with a mid-priced neighborhood supermarket. In other words, they’re not as cheap as the discount stores, but neither are they as expensive as the prestige stores.
There is a delivery charge. That charge decreases as you put more items into your shopping basket. We handle this by ordering just every couple weeks, so that we can increase our total amount and reduce the overall delivery costs.
There is also a fuel surcharge. I find that very reasonable in a period of unstable energy prices. This cost is actually less than I spend on gasoline going to my local store.
The drivers are permitted to accept tips. We usually give a few dollars if we have the singles around. A couple occasions we had no small bills, so we gave no tip. The drivers were equally cooperative and cheerful with or without the tip. (They are well trained in customer relations.)
Peapod Areas of delivery…
The online supermarket (grocery store) serves the following areas:
Chicago and all suburbs
Milwaukee and south eastern Wisconsin
Connecticutt
Massachusetts
New York
New Jersey
Rhode Island
Washington, D.C.
Maryland
Virginia
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