LATEST NEWS Christmas Market Oklahoma LoginSubscribe Newsletters Contact HOME NEWS EVENTS COMMUNITY LINKS PHOTOS ARCHIVES PONCA CITY MONTHLY Instant Grocetification: Ease Holiday Stress with Online Grocery Shopping Tue, November 23, 2021Andrew Hicks / staff writer If the holidays have you stressed, put some time back in your pocket by doing your grocery shopping online, instead of standing in a checkout line. In Ponca City, we have two major online shopping players, Instacart and Walmart. I use both regularly, so I thought I would share my shopping experience so you can see how the services compare. Call me lazy. I don’t care. Instacart allows you to shop from either Homeland or Aldi with home delivery for both stores. Walmart also offers home delivery. For home delivery, there are additional services fees, as well as a gratuity charge. Aldi and Walmart both have free curbside pickup. So, if you want to feel at least slightly involved in the process you can drive to the store. Both have an app you can download for Android and Apple so you can shop from anywhere. Throw Away the Shopping List One of the greatest benefits of online grocery shopping is the ongoing shopping list. No more do I need to keep track of my needed items. When I use something, I just add it to my shopping list. Both Walmart and Instacart have the option to add items to the cart and checkout later. Both apps feature a bar code scanner so you can just scan the bar code and add it to your list, or they have a handy search feature. No more forgetting the mustard. There are still a few kinks to make this a truly spectacular experience. I’ll dig into that a little later, but for the most part, I have thrown out my shopping list. You Pay Premium for Service Look, let’s be honest, having another person do your grocery shopping and bring them to your house is a luxury service, so you are definitely going to pay for the convenience. If you don’t want to pay the extra fees, you can opt for curbside pickup. With fewer fees and no gratuity, curbside pickup from Aldi or Walmart can make online grocery shopping affordable. As I mentioned, both apps allow you to input the amount of gratuity you want to pay for home delivery, but I will remind you these people are doing your grocery shopping for you and bringing it to your house. So please tip well! Delivery Charge Both services offer you two options, a pay per delivery or a yearly membership, paid monthly or annually. When I do the Walmart per delivery, I pay on average about $20 to $30 more than the free curbside pickup. Instacart can sometimes cost me an extra $50 for delivery fee and gratuity. Admittedly, since I like to feel accomplished, I do mostly the curbside pickup, so I haven’t explored the cost-saving benefits of yearly membership from either service. Quality and Selection My biggest complaint about the Walmart shopping experience is availability. Remember the handy feature of adding items to your cart for later checkout? Well, that works for the most part, but the app is keeping track of real-time inventory so sometimes items may run out or will no longer be available. Also, after you checkout, items may become unavailable. In most cases, they work to get you something comparable, but just as often, you simply don’t get something. If they substitute an item, they give you a reasonable amount of time to reject or approve the substitute. This is where Instacart has the advantage because you can communicate with your shopper in real-time. Often, I’ve had a shopper text me to say they are out of sliced white mushrooms, but they have whole ones, would those work? That is a lifesaver, compared to Walmart where I just don’t get mushrooms. I should also add that if you are super picky about your produce, online shopping probably won’t be good for you. I am not. Pick Up and Delivery With the Walmart app, you pick the time you want to schedule your curbside pickup or home delivery. Times tend to fill up fast on the weekends or near holidays so be mindful when planning. The delivery options for Instacart are a little more instant, usually within a two-to-five-hour window that you select. More precise times must be scheduled the day before delivery. Curbside pickup from Aldi can be scheduled two hours in advance. Walmart also has a premium two-hour “express checkout” that will get your groceries to your front door in two hours or less. The two times I have utilized the “express checkout,” I had my items in less than an hour. Both apps offer great service, and each store has advantages and disadvantages. My parting advice is to plan ahead; I have much better luck when I order the day before I plan to pick up. Last-minute shopping can be both expensive and risky because you may not get all your items. Happy Holidays!!! Facebook Twitter Email Pinterest More EVENTS 1 DEC Festival of Angels 06:00 PM - 10:00 PM Pioneer Woman Ponca City OK 74604 3 DEC Ponca City’s Annual Lighted Christmas Parade 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM Grand Avenue Ponca City OK 745601 3 DEC Lighted Christmas Parade & Christmas Open House Weekend (all weekend) All Day Event 100 block east grand Ponca City OK 74601 4 DEC Free Holiday Movies at The Hub 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM 16601 West South Avenue Tonkawa OK 74653 MORE EVENTS POPULAR RECENT 1 Stone Barn Story Enters a New Chapter 12/01/2020 2 Bird Scooters coming to Ponca City on September 27 09/16/2021 3 Four Ponca City Fighters Set to Compete this Weekend in Enid MMA Competition 07/29/2021 4 Debra Rue Tells the Untold Story of the 12 Pioneer Women Statues 03/13/2021 5 Business Spotlight: Hideaway Marina 08/01/2021 THIS WEEK'S POLL Do you plan to get vaccinated? Yes No Unsure After FDA Approval HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Previous Next Facebook Twitter Instagram About Us News USA Entertainment Technology Business Policies & Info Services Classifieds Directory Real Estate Events © Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved About | Contact | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions