Peapod

It's been an interesting study in marketing effectiveness. Peapod (Stop & Shop's home delivery service) has been sending me postcards for MONTHS. Maybe even a whole year. But I kind of like getting out and seeing people, and I often wait until I'm almost out of things before I actually get myself out to the grocery store, so I kept thinking, "Nah." Last month I finally hit the exact right combination of factors... an almost empty fridge, several evening commitments in a row, and some nasty weather that made the idea of sitting at home shopping from my laptop especially appealing. So I signed up and started shopping.

The online store doesn't have everything that the real world store does, but it certainly has the essentials. One feature I especially liked was the "sort by unit price" option; when buying something relatively generic like corn chips, it was really easy to figure out which brand represented the best deal. And the starter coupon I'd received in the mail effectively negated the delivery charge (which didn't seem inordinately high in any case).

Once you've put together your order, you get to select your desired delivery window. The most popular delivery times (e.g. right after work) sometimes have a several dollar premium on them, but my meetings meant that a 7-10pm window on a Thursday night was just fine.

Sure enough, that night I heard the vehicular backup "beep beep beep", and the Peapod delivery truck appeared in our driveway:

And here's the haul on my kitchen floor, before I put it all away:


I don't think I'll be using Peapod for ALL my shopping anytime soon, but the night I used it, Mr. D and I got to hang out and play family games instead of schlepping to the grocery store and back at the end of an already long day, which makes me think that there's probably some more Peapod shopping in my future. But maybe not over the holidays. Their delivery selection page currently says, "We suggest you reserve your delivery time now as popular times fill up quickly during the busy holiday season."