Grocery dot com

Sometimes there is just so much to do and so little time!

One great way to cut a few hours of errands out of your day is to do your grocery shopping online. If you haven’t done this yet it may seem like a strange idea but grocery shopping without leaving the house isn’t such a new concept. Years ago my friends and I used to use Schwans.

Schwans day was always a great day. The man in the van would stop by our houses every week, present us with a glossy catalog and we’d pick out all of the frozen items that delighted us. He’d head to the van and bring in our order. It was just that easy. Their food was great too. Well, Schwans has now embraced the internet age and you can order their items online for delivery to your home. I do hope they still have the Van Man. There was something so decidedly retro about having a food salesman bringing your items. He always had the best tips and was known to thrown in a freebie or two for you to try!

More recently I was without a car and in desperate need of some groceries. I had a coupon for free delivery from Safeway.com so I decided to give it a go! I was delighted to find out that their “personal shoppers” are trained to select the freshest produce and you can even put notes on your order for special requests. Need some very ripe banana’s for the Banana Bread you’re baking? Just put that in the notes section and they’ll be sure to seek out the ripest bananas. You can also specify back up items in case the one you really want is out of stock. One feature I really loved was being able to save my favorite items to a shopping list for me to revisit regularly. No need to search around later.

With Safeway you can schedule your delivery date and time for as early as the same day (if you place your order early enough in the AM) or up to a week from now. Be sure to pay careful attention to the sale dates if you’re ordering food for delivery a few days out.

There are lots of online grocery options these days and there are lots of reasons to try them out but I won’t be switching permanently. I love wandering the aisles and discovering new products. I actually really enjoy grocery shopping. I get some of my best meal ideas by adventuring through the store. But the next time I’m in a rush and need to stock up without running out I’ll definitely be using my online supermarket!

Give one of these a try!

Net Grocer
PeaPod
Albertsons
Amazon Groceries

Mashable has a great listing of all the regional and national online grocer sites.