When I was a little girl, I mainly remember there being pizza and Chinese delivery. Sandwich delivery popped up sometime in the last 10-20 years as well, but in the last few years, many delivery services have appeared for a much wider range of items.
In Britain, grocery delivery has been common for a while now. We often got deliveries from Sainsburys once a month to stock up on the basics since we didn’t have a car. Even having one now, we had a taste for delivery when we moved to the US and were happy to learn the Phoenix area has more delivery than most parts of the US.
When we arrived, we found a grocery delivery service right away, but there were fewer options than there are in Britain. Only Safeway, Whole Foods and Fry’s appeared to do it. Several other grocery stores do not. Whole Foods is quite an expensive way to get most of your groceries and we were more familiar with Safeway than Fry’s, so we went with them.
We have had some issues with Safeway. Two particularly odd drivers gave us some problems, but they still remain the best way to get a large number of grocery ‘basics’ delivered, things like water, toilet paper, vegetables and so on. Their fee for delivery is very reasonable at about 10 dollars for order over 150 USD and 12 for those under and their prices in the store are the same as those online, so the delivery fee is the only extra cost. They are very good for a large order, but they would be no good for if you need just a few things. This is definitely a bulk order service only as you need to plan ahead at least a day or two to get a delivery slot most of the time and they have a 49 dollar order minimum. If you are out of 4 things, this is probably not the way to go.
A big plus is that you actually aren’t allowed to tip their drivers. All other services have decided to get tipping involved and Chris still finds this deeply awkward as there is much less tipping in Britain. He basically hates having to judge the quality of someone’s service. It makes him feel like he’s taken on the position of their boss and it’s not a job he wants. I am inclined to agree with him. I too prefer people just be given whatever wage is necessary and keep tipping out of it. That said, we certainly do tip in US restaurants and we generally make it about 20% regardless of the server’s mood or mistakes just to be fair minded and to avoid having to play boss and because we recognize that not tipping isn’t the way to change the system but mainly the way to screw over someone in a poorly paid job. Nonetheless, we both feel a bit annoyed when it gets introduced as part of a new system where it wouldn’t have necessarily been required.
Unlike UK delivery, Safeway delivery is based on what is physically available in a local store the morning your delivery is sent out, while I know that Sainsburys have dark stores that are only used by pickers, not by normal shoppers. This does mean sometimes items will randomly go out of stock based on what a particular local store has. Stock is obviously a bit more stable in a dark store with no physical customers in the mix. Safeway do substitutions and you can give some notes on this, but how much they read them varies and sometimes their judgement has been odd. For instance, I was once given a big bag of green beans when I ordered bean sprouts even though that order already contained another bag of green beans.
Safeway compares very similarly with Sainsburys in the UK, in that it’s one of the mid-priced supermarket chains. It’s products tend to be reasonable quality, but we don’t necessarily want to buy everything from them. We are great fans of Trader Joe’s, which is similar to Britain’s Marks & Spencer in that they do many quality own brand convenience products. Also like M&S, they have a really nice wine selection that tends to be high quality even in its lowest priced items compared to similarly priced items in other shops. Trader Joe’s does not deliver and the nearest ones are in Phoenix and Tempe. There is not one in Chandler itself. It is the one thing that we regularly want that is not within a bubble of about two miles.
This left us trying to find a way to get Trader Joe’s products in other ways or find services that sell similar quality products elsewhere. We had two options: Amazon Prime Now and Postmates.
Postmates does actually deliver from Trader Joe’s. That said, it is by far the least elegant of the delivery services. Safeway and Amazon both have a list of items you can purchase and are a unified service, while Postmates just connects you with someone local willing to do your shopping for you. On Amazon and Safeway, you can shop and search past purchases, so it’s fairly easy with both to add previously purchased items to your new order. With Postmates, as far as I can tell, every time you have to add all the information yourself, so, for instance, to order Trader Joe’s French Vanilla Ice Cream, I have to fill out the following form each time:
This form involves writing ‘French Vanilla Ice Cream’ on a phone keyboard, looking up or remembering the approximate price and finding a photo of the thing or keeping one in some useful location. This is a bit crap. That said, if you really don’t want to drive to X shop, it can be worth doing if that shop doesn’t deliver or those items aren’t available elsewhere.
A further downside of Postmates is that they don’t deliver alcohol. We really like getting sparkling wine from Trader Joe’s and this is something that is against Postmates rules. Additionally, they are not available all the time. It is down to if there is a postmate in your area who will accept your order. If you annoy all the postmates in your area or no one is available at the time, you’re out of luck. Safeway and Amazon both have regular schedules so you can count on a slot always being available during their open hours provided you book ahead of time. With Safeway, a day or two is usually enough. With Amazon Prime Now, you need to make your order at least 20 minutes before the time slot you desire.
Basically, we will use Postmates in a pinch, but if Trader Joe’s got their own proper delivery service like Safeway’s, we would give up Postmates and just do a large order once or twice month. I’m glad Postmates exists, but only because what I really want doesn’t yet exist and it is certainly better than nothing.
When it comes to non-Trader Joe’s items, Amazon Prime Now is taking over some of the space that used to be reserved for Safeway because their service, although woefully lacking in Trader Joe’s items, is jam packed with other useful items. They don’t just deliver food. They deliver everything from a Captain Kirk Barbie doll to toilet paper to sun glasses within 2 hours between 8 AM and 10 PM if you are an Amazon Prime member. There is no charge beyond the Prime subscription, which we had anyway. They have also recently taken up restaurant food delivery and alcohol delivery, though not within the same order as ‘normal’ items and alcohol is, of course, time limited by local law, so not before 10 AM most days or before 2 PM on Sunday in this area. With restaurant delivery, there is a delivery fee if the order is under 35 dollars. A dinner delivery is often easily about 40, while this has meant paying a delivery fee if we want 15 dollars worth of sandwiches for lunch.
Amazon Prime Now is great if you want an odd box of things like an HDMI cable, some tart cherry juice, a dozen organic eggs, organic strawberries and Heinz Simply Ketchup. As a note, Heinz Simpy Ketchup happens to be regularly available at a cheaper price than Safeway by two dollars.
Amazon also recently bought Whole Foods, which means a lovely selection of Whole Foods items has just popped up on the site:
It’s not as good as Trader Joe’s, but there are some things we prefer to buy from Whole Foods, so this is good news. Amazon is also bringing down the price of many Whole Food items, which is positive as many are quality, but a bit overpriced for what they are.
Amazon’s customer service have told us that Prime Now delivery people do not see individual tips, but rather get a bulk tip at the end of the day. We have never actually had the same delivery person twice, so I am not sure what they expect tipping to do within this system. If tipping is meant to promote fast, quality service, I’m not sure how this will make a difference if they don’t know how much you personally tipped and if you never have the same person twice. This is the only major downside to Amazon Prime Now. I am hoping when the drones come, this issue will be solved as they can hardly expect us to tip a machine.
As awkward as it is, it is an advantage over Postmates. If a postmate is unhappy with your tip or for some other reason don’t like you, they can choose to never deliver for you again. With Amazon, this just seems unlikely enough that you probably don’t need to worry about it too much.
Another plus of Amazon over Safeway is their customer service. We have not actually needed to interact with Postmates customer service, but our experience with Safeway has been long, drawn out and miserable. I truly hate their customer service song. It sounds like a short clip from a child’s piano recital being played on repeat.
The people we have spoken to have actually been great, but their infrastructure is nothing like as amazing or efficient as Amazon’s and not anywhere as good at truly solving problems. Even in the person we’ve spoken with is considerate and wants to help, their hands have often been tied. Amazon are big enough that they can take the hit for mistakes without burden of proof falling on you, which is just not true with most companies. For instance, we got two frozen pizzas that arrived totally thawed the other week from Amazon Prime Now. We got a full refund plus a 10 dollar voucher for next time. If your restaurant order is more than 10 minutes late, same deal. You get 10 dollars off your next Prime Now order. We have had this treatment about virtually all problems with Prime Now.
Safeway will will give refunds, but only give vouchers if you seem especially angry or it was something especially awful. In one case, they even gave us a full refund on the grocery order, but that was an exceptionally bad situation that involved a series of phone calls. As much as we did appreciate it and the person we worked with was amazing and great at her job, Amazon has never required a series of anything for a result. One conversation has virtually always been enough and that conversation is usually short and doesn’t take more than a few minutes to get started. I have often been on hold with Safeway for a long time before I even get the conversation going.
Safeway also won’t redeliver for a small number of items even if missing them out was their fault. You will have to set up a new order again. Although this is true with Amazon in some situations, setting up a new order with a 20 dollar minimum vs. a 49 dollar one does make a difference, as does the fact that that 20 dollars could include a much wider range of types of products.
That said, Amazon Prime Now is still lacking in certain big areas like fresh veg and meat. I could not do a full grocery order from them because they don’t have everything yet. They don’t have all the brands we most like even when they are very common brands. For instance, Activia yogurt, a yogurt brand I have consumed on 3 continents, is not yet available from Amazon Prime Now.
In terms of apps, Amazon wins hands down. The Prime Now app is very easy to use. Safeway’s app is terrible and you have to log back in most times you use it. Their search is much less smart than Amazon’s both on their website and on the app. Postmates basically don’t have an item search, so although their app is better than Safeway’s, all you are searching for is your store/restaurant and if a postmate is currently available for said location. It does that fine, but given the lack of access to a list of items in the stores that interest me, it feels more limited than Safeway’s even though it works more smoothly in what it actually does do.
We now use a mix of probably 60% Safeway. 25% Prime Now, 5% Postmates and 10% actually leaving the house. We get a Safeway order about once a week and a few Prime Now orders for the sorts of items that are best fresh and therefore worth getting more than once a week, like berries. We’ve actually eaten a lot more fruit because of Amazon Prime Now than we used to. We also use it for items Safeway doesn’t have or things that are cheaper there.
Amazon Prime Now is definitely my favorite, but Safeway is still the way to go for a large grocery order and if you want fresh meat and vegetables. Postmates are useful for the moment, but I don’t think they will last. Fingers crossed that Trader Joe’s get that delivery service started one of these years. I must admit, I wouldn’t mind Amazon buying them, too, or perhaps engaging in a partnership. I would very much enjoy the meeting of Amazon Prime Now and Trader Joe’s.