Everywhere Commerce

Amazon Locker“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: A pretty secure method of deliveryThe negatives: Too much effort for frequent use?Would I do it again? NoSummary: Adding a preferred Amazon Locker address to my existing account took about two minutes. Finding an eligible SKU of my intended purchase took three times as long, because only items fulfilled directly by Amazon qualify. (Why not subsidiaries like Soap.com, guys?)Two-day shipping (via UPS) was my only delivery option, which more than doubled the total order cost (although shipping would have been free had I signed up for a 30-day Amazon Prime trial). It also forced me to rearrange some plans to make sure that I retrieved the package before heading out of town: I was given roughly five days to collect the package before it would be returned (at a full refund).An email received about 24 hours after I first placed the order confirmed shipment and linked me to a tracking page. Another email arrived about 24 hours later to provide the necessary locker-access information.The shiny, orange Amazon lockers were the cleanest part of the Manhattan establishment that housed them (which, to be polite, will remain unnamed here). The bar code I received didn’t scan at the kiosk, but the access code worked fine and I was out of the store in about two minutes.The process is pretty efficient overall and probably a smart option for big-city residents who’ve long had issues with home package deliveries – when they’re buying a new smartphone or other expensive item, that is. It seems like far too much effort for run-of-the-mill packaged goods purchases.– Peter BreenWalmart Pickup Grocery“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: Easy to use, flexible pickup times, no extra chargeThe negatives: Product presentation and assortment lacking; no scan-to-order optionWould I do it again? YesSummary: The website is easy to use overall. You can sort by brand, type, sizes – but browsing vegetables in alphabetical order is not very intuitive. And many had a “no image available” message, which is almost embarrassing.They have jazz apples, snacking apples, Pacific Rose apples, and I don’t even know what Braeburn apples are – but amazingly they don’t have classic Red Delicious apples, which I would think is one of the biggest sellers at Walmart.You can access the site on a mobile device but it is not mobile-optimized and not nearly as easy to navigate.After you fill your cart, you check out, pay and then choose an hourlong time slot for pickup, giving them at least a few hours of lead time. It is very flexible and there is no extra charge.At the pickup location, you key in a confirmation code that you received via email or your last name and are directed to pull up to a pickup spot. It looks like there are 30 or 40 spots total, but there were only three or four cars (all minivans) in the lot when I arrived at 8 a.m. on a weekday morning. It was fairly quick. I had ordered a handful of items and they brought three big yellow totes out on a cart.The frozen product and produce was in one, the meat in another, and the dry grocery in the third. After picking up I received an email confirming the transaction and delivering an ID I can key in to Savings Catcher.Anything you order is automatically added to a favorites list for easy reordering, which is pretty cool, but I’m a big Amazon person so I wish they also had the ability to scan UPCs to build a list that way.– Patrycja MalinowskaCurbside“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: Easy to useThe negatives: Separate app required, no help with involved purchases, not much time savedWould I do it again? NoSummary: You have to download the Curbside app. I searched a Best Buy location for a specific type of cable and came up with five or six items that were close to what I was looking for. It was easy enough to flip through the products and their descriptions.After payment I saw a progress screen. It took a little bit longer than the 11:30 promised time to get my order ready; I received the confirmation email at 11:40.A-boards in the store’s parking lot announced Curbside, which occupied a little turquoise stand in front of the store entrance. I pulled up and the guy behind the stand was reading something, so I just kind of said, “Hey.” He came over, wanted to see my ID, matched the ID to the order, went back to the stand where he had my small bag and brought it over. I was probably in the lot less than two minutes total.I’m very indifferent about the service. Right inside the door at this Best Buy is the store’s own pickup location, so I’m not sure it’s that different. It could save me a couple minutes, but I still have to drive there and back.Another issue I faced is that the cable I received isn’t exactly right – I actually wanted a smaller one. Probably my mistake of not looking at that item, but I bet I would have figured that out if I were in the store. What I don’t know is how they’re going to handle the return because there is a big “Curbside” sticker on the product package. They can’t put it on the shelf like that and I don’t think they can remove it.– Patrycja MalinowskaPeapod by Stop & Shop Curbside Pickup“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: No crowded aisles, no checkout linesThe negatives: It can make a guy feel lazyWould I do it again? YesSummary: I’m no power shopper, so I was happy to find descending levels of category menus that made it pretty easy to find products. The brand-specific offers I encountered while drilling down were unobtrusive and mostly relevant – I was even enticed into an unplanned purchase.Having placed my order at 8:20 a.m. on Thursday, I was surprised to learn that the first available pick-up window was 9 a.m. on Friday. The initial order-confirmation email presented my list of purchases but no details about pickup; those came in a separate email later.Signage on cages outside the store indicated I was in the right spot but I still spent several minutes wondering before an employee came out to help. “You’re Peter?” she asked when I announced my purpose (suggesting that the service hasn’t quite caught on yet). My sense of chivalry twitched as I sat while the woman – older than me by at least a few years – rolled the hand-truck over to my car and placed the bags into the back seat.The order was complete and correct (except for the errant diet ginger ale) and all the perishables were fresh. Alas, I didn’t get the “free gift” welcome packet that had appeared unexpectedly on the invoice.If/when usage volume increases enough to shorten the order/pickup times and smooth out the on-site wrinkles, this could be a helpful shopping option – especially for a list of pre-selected staples that I could pick up at a consistent time.— Peter BreenAce Express Delivery“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: Quick, relatively easy, good for bulky itemsThe negatives: Might be easier to pick up myselfWould I do it again? YesSummary: An Ace Hardware van pulled up to the house for the delivery of a single weed-killer spray I ordered to test its new express delivery. An Ace employee walked it over without a bag, completing my simple transaction. The time lapse between order and door was a mere two hours.The ordering process was rather easy, but it was a little confusing figuring out what was available for delivery vs. in-store pickup online. Ace also kept in touch throughout the process, first emailing, and then calling to ensure someone was home before delivering my order. The one major caveat is the minuscule five-mile radius that qualifies for same-day delivery. It would probably be easier for most people who live this close to just swing by their local Ace store to complete a purchase rather than wait at home for a small delivery.However, I had a brief conversation with the driver, who had just completed a lawn mower delivery. It became clear that there are instances when this service would be useful, for example, in the delivery of larger items, especially for those without the capability to bring them home. I would probably utilize the service again if I were ordering something that I needed quickly and didn’t want to bother lugging in and out of my car.Interestingly, I was not charged a delivery fee, although a $5 delivery charge is mentioned online. Perhaps my order of a smaller item prompted them to waive the fee.— Sana JafraniInstacart Grocery Delivery“From My Experience …”Ease of use: OKMobile enabled: YesThe positives: Huge selection, takes custom ordersThe negatives: Complicated interfaceWould I do it again: YesSummary: Instacart lets consumers order groceries through its website or mobile application to be purchased at a local store of their choice and delivered to their doors. Some items are easier to order than others. For instance, picking out a bottle of apple cider vinegar is simple, but chicken is ordered by the pound, so I had to clarify in the notes section that I just wanted two breasts from the meat department. Some items are missing even if the retailer in question regularly stocks them, but luckily there’s a “special requests” section where you can put in products that haven’t made it to Instacart’s inventory yet. The site will mention if an item is on sale at the selected store.Instacart also has a partnership with recipe aggregating mobile app Yummly that places a “Shop for ingredients delivered by Instacart” button at the bottom of recipes. To use this function, I needed to download both the Yummly and Instacart mobile apps – it doesn’t work through Yummly’s website. The program could use a more intuitive way of translating the recipe to a shopping list. For instance, a recipe I sent called for ginger, honey, lemon zest and orange. For each of these I was given a variety of options to add to my cart including Endust “lemon zest” dusting spray, Canada Dry ginger ale, Noosa honey yogurt and an orange bell pepper. However, it was nice that it translated how much of each ingredient I needed so I could decide on size.Although I asked for my order to be delivered between 4 and 5 p.m., it came at 3:45 p.m. Normally I’d be happy about an early delivery, but here that could run the risk of me not being home yet and thus my food hanging out on the porch for 15 minutes. I’d paid and tipped my delivery person ahead of time, so he just handed me a bag with everything, including my specially requested pork chops.— Samantha NelsonP&G Shop Express“From My Experience …”Ease of use: OKMobile enabled: YesThe positives: A lot of special offersThe negatives: Some offers were confusingWould I do it again? NoSummary: This spring, a print mailer (“Dear Postal Customer”) landed in my mailbox from P&G Shop Express. It caught my attention because it trumpeted “Free Same Day Delivery” in 60-point type. Sounded “on trend,” so I volunteered it for this project.Now maybe I’m off base, but I assumed going in that the phrase “Same Day Delivery” meant “your mid-morning order will be on your doorstep before midnight.” And perhaps it does for some people in some circumstances – but it didn’t for me.The flier offer, set to expire April 24, said to visit a specific site – PGShop.com/SameDay – although I never seemed to land on that exact webpage. Instead, I kept landing on a general ordering page. I made an order at 9:01 p.m. on April 22, and promptly received an email acknowledgement that noted that a “speedy shipping team will be sending a confirmation email within 24 hours.” Twenty-three and a half hours later I did indeed receive an email – but it said that I’d cancelled my order. That was news to me. If I did indeed cancel somehow, it was via an inadvertent keystroke. The timing was suspicious, but what was clear was that I wasn’t getting a shipment that night. When I re-looked at the flier, I started noticing the asterisks:Free shipping but ... “valid in select ZIP codes only.” Perhaps my ZIP wasn’t “select” enough. But then why did P&G mail the flier to my ZIP code in the first place?Same-day delivery means “orders made by 10 a.m. the same day are delivered for free, Monday – Saturday.” There’s a lot of room for interpretation in there.My guess is that they were testing new capabilities and my order fell through some cracks. Oh, well, in an effort to complete this project, I waited a few weeks and then one morning ordered a 100-ounce bottle of Tide and a 9V Duracell battery. P&G Shop threw in a freebie: a travel-size can of Aussie Mega Hairspray. This delivery arrived promptly, just two days later, around dinnertime.One of life’s great joys is discovering that Amazon.com (1.) stocks hard-to-find sizes of weird things like furnace filters, and (2.) employs UPS guys who’ll schlep 80-pound orders of fireplace logs to your threshold. Neither of those needs drives my purchasing of P&G products, however, so this will be a one-off for me.I did like the space P&G Shop leaves for a “Gift Message,” so I filled it in with a love note to the Institute. But whoever processed the order lopped off the name I’d attached as signatory: A.G. Lafley. Smart move on their part, methinks.— Bill SchoberGoogle Express“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: No ads, easy to use, same-day delivery The negatives: Four-hour delivery windowsWould I do it again? YesSummary: I go back and forth between being a retail purist and value seeker, so I was pleased to find Google Express catered a bit to both of these sides. The mobile application allows users to search for products by retailer or browse products across all participating chains to find the best-priced items.My Google Express shopping experience began May 13 at 10:30 a.m. Signing up for the service was relatively easy, and understanding how to use the service was very intuitive. I was also pleasantly surprised to find Costco was one of the participating retailers in my area, which would come in handy for urban dwellers and commuters such as myself who want to save by buying in bulk but not have to lug around large-sized SKUs on the train. That said, I added a 36-roll pack of Kimberly-Clark’s Cottonelle toilet paper from Costco to my order and various items from Walgreens including Church & Dwight’s Arm & Hammer toothpaste and snack bars from General Mills’ Nature Valley. Another neat feature is that the mobile app allows users to interact with the products, so I was able to zoom in on my snack bars to check its nutritional label before adding it to my cart.My order total was $38.33 with delivery included. (Annual membership for Google Express is $95 or $10 a month, which includes free same-day delivery on eligible orders of $15 or more.) I was prompted to add my Costco membership account number and Walgreens loyalty card at checkout, where I was also asked to select one of three delivery windows (afternoon, evening or morning the next day). I chose to have my order delivered between 6 and 10 p.m. the same day, expecting to be greeted by my package when I got home.I was probably a little too excited when my order finally arrived at about 8 p.m. I greeted the delivery man by taking multiple photos of my order and him to post to Twitter and Instagram later, like the good Millennial I am. The delivery man had made his way to the backyard of my apartment building, which I appreciated because he wasn’t sure where to leave my package. As a bonus, I also discovered my package included an extra SKU of Church & Dwight’s Arm & Hammer toothpaste (I assume by mistake).— Cyndi LozaPetco Repeat Delivery“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: Timely delivery, convenientThe negatives: Limited selection, lots of emailsWould I do it again: YesSummary: Pet food is one area where I can really see the convenience of repeat delivery. I never change how much I feed my pets, so I know when they’re going to run out of food – unlike when I’m going to run out of detergent or milk. Petco’s service lets you schedule a delivery every one to six weeks from a limited selection of 3,000 SKUs. You can either browse eligible SKUs on Petco.com’s “Repeat Delivery” tab or search for products through the site’s standard e-commerce functionality to look for the Repeat Delivery icon.I was able to find my choice of cat food and set it up for weekly delivery. I received a flurry of status emails letting me know the whereabouts of my package and then asking me for feedback on my purchase. The food is shipped by UPS, so you can have it left at your door, and comes neatly fitted into a cardboard box by paper with a sheet offering return instructions placed on top.Cancelling or changing the frequency is simple. In fact, I actually got a free box because Petco shipped out my next order before my cancellation was processed and then refunded me the amount I’d paid.— Samantha NelsonPostmates On-Demand Delivery“From My Experience …”Ease of use: GoodMobile enabled: YesThe positives: Good selection, quick, very transparentThe negatives: Cost, lack of availabilityWould I do it again? YesSummary: My Postmates cyclist arrived in the drizzle, beaming that he got me a 24-pack of batteries for cheaper than the 16-pack I ordered. I was thrilled, gave him a big tip from the suggested percentages and then hiccupped at my receipt. I truly paid for the convenience. My delivery fee, service fee of 9% and tip totaled $19 on an order of only $23 (paper towels and batteries).To Postmates’ credit, the fees are known upfront, and I had no real reason to complain because the service was fast, and I got to be a hero to my son who needed batteries for his toy car. From order to dropoff, the entire trip was tracked over my mobile phone. The estimated pickup and arrival times did jump around. He was 11 minutes away, then five, then 12. Once my cyclist purchased the items, I got an email of the receipt including a picture confirmation that he took.As for the selection, the app is loaded with restaurants from fast food down the street to trendy restaurants that fall outside of my delivery zone. A General Store section carries small items and sundries in many categories: snacks, alcohol, drug, household, sexual wellness and more.I’ve used Postmates once before to have a growler of beer delivered from a unique craft brewery in town. A friend used it once because she was holed up sick and needed medicine and comfort foods.Postmates differentiates by using cyclists (some drive cars), which I love. It’s available in major cities in 14 states, but I think it’s best used in a pinch or to treat yourself. One big miscue was I tried ordering my items around noon, and the app and website was non-responsive because I think no drivers were around.— Dan Ochwat

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