Lazy Shopper's Rejoice

A lot of you know that I am the world's laziest shopper. So far, I depend primarily on Amazon and Walmart for delivery of most goods. Now it looks like those guys are going to have a little more competition.

Without jabbering you to death, I'll just get right to the details. Here are some of the articles I've been seeing about shopper options:

• "Here's how Walmart is taking on Instacart, Target, and Amazon" (Like with most long-distance deliveries, I can get everything but perishables from Walmart. I can order and pay for some grocery items to be picked up at a local store. That option is somewhat limited and, obviously defeats the "home delivery" purpose.)
• Here's a more concise breakdown of the Walmart delivery service. This is still in a test market phase, I guess.
• The Penny Hoarder review, "Shipt Grocery Delivery Service: Is It Worth the Added Cash for Convenience?" lays out some pros and cons of the Target-acquired delivery service. (In my opinion, you have to factor in things personal to your situation. I don't mind the hassle of arranging my budget and splitting my shopping between the different merchants. It's a hassle and there are costs but I also don't pay for a car, insurance, gas, and upkeep. As for my budget, I think that shopping this way keeps me within bounds. It's easier not to impulse shop or go over budget because I am seeing totals and fees before I actually pay. Finally, when I am shopping from home, I can run in and double-check my pantry before I order too much or too little of something.
• It looks like Kroger is testing a delivery service. This is good news for some shoppers. I don't think there is a Kroger's near where I live.

A couple of things that I'm surprised more people don't know is that in metro areas (Hi, Houston, where my best friend lives) you can get same-day delivery of groceries via Amazon Fresh. I was just stunned that my friend didn't know about this. We both shop Amazon so much that we should get alimony if we ever break up with Prime. She lives in one of the WORST places to drive so Fresh should be her new boyfriend.

Of course, as soon as I sign into Fresh, I get notified with a quickness that it's not available in my rinky-dink town. However, if I wanted to order groceries for my elderly aunt, I could do so just by changing the delivery address. In this day of aging relatives and such, that's a nice feature for some of us.

Just choose from your address book or add a new one

I love how they don't deliver to my small town address, but I can choose to ship "outside the US". Really, Amazon? You so trifling...

If the linked articles are on your "read later" list, just know that, along with Amazon, Target and Walmart have or are testing out same-day delivery services. Instacart is another way to get deliveries from local stores. For me, that means Hyvee and Petsmart. Yay.

I hope this was helpful. Now I have to go and read some of those long articles for myself.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: I picked 2 videos this time. 

 I love this one because the editing (?) is sheer genius. The old footage is a history lesson of sorts. (And, by the way, we don't need to make America "great again". She wasn't always that great for everybody but we were moving towards better until... well, never mind.)

This one is a favorite because I love the original Glenn Miller recording. Cool how somebody "funked" it up to another level. Enjoy.

Online Groceries Shopping: Walmart vs Amazon Pantry

Ever since I even planned to move here to the Lower 48, I thought about doing most of my grocery shopping online. Now that I am here and mostly settled in the new place, I had a chance to try out the online grocery shopping experiment.

For my meats and dairy items, I can walk the block and a half to the little city market. The nearest large grocery store is too far away for me to get there on foot. Even if I could, getting the groceries back would be a hassle. The nearest Walmart is just over 7 miles away in the neighboring town.

I have a Prime account and an online Walmart account. I decided to see which would be most affordable for buying basic household supplies. I'm talking about pantry items (soups and some cooking staples) and things for cleaning and storage. Here is what I ended up listing:

• Paper towels
• Toilet tissue
• Sanitary/feminine hygiene items
• Soup
• Beverages (I like Pellegrino in particular)
• Trash bags and food storage baggies
• Dish soap
• Coffee

Since I wanted to know which online store would be best, I opened carts in both Walmart and Amazon's Prime Pantry and loaded them with almost identical items (brand, size, count, etc), then I compared costs.

Walmart ended up being the most affordable. The item prices were not only cheaper, so was the shipping. With Walmart, I get free shipping on orders of $35 or more. With Amazon's Pantry, things are more complicated. 

Okay. For Prime Pantry, the free shipping is contingent on ordering a certain amount of "qualifying" items. If you don't have 5 or more of the "qualifying" items, the shipping cost is $5.99 per box.

NOTE: straight from Amazon, here is the definition of a Pantry box:

Prime Pantry boxes vary in size and can hold up to 45 pounds. Your order will be packaged in an appropriate-sized box, based on the dimensions and weight of the items. This box could be anything from the size of a shoe box to as large as a suitcase.

That sounds simple enough, and I actually thought it would be easy enough to get at least 5 qualifying items. Uh... Nope. 

As I was filling my cart, there was a little meter showing me my "fill rate". I realized that it is a bit harder to fill a box with qualifying items. Unless I wanted to shop based solely on qualifying items, I was going to be paying that shipping fee.

Let's zoom in on some of that:

Of course, Walmart tends to be cheaper than almost any other retailer. Throw in the free shipping when I order over a certain dollar amount of goods and... Walmart is the winner.

There was another benefit to using Walmart: most of the items ship faster. Maybe because of the location of where they ship from? Also, there is the option of putting together an order for Store Pickup.

Here is my first Walmart order. Total cost for at least a month and a half supply of everything on my list: $70 + tax.

At any rate, I will probably continue to use Walmart for my every-other-month shopping of basics household stuff. I will reserve Amazon for the other Prime items I use. 

Hope this helps anyone who has been thinking of using Amazon or Walmart for basic household shopping needs.

Peace

--Free