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It is slower to be accepted because people want to pick their own fresh produce and fear the store will pick those that are just about to expire to avoid taking a total loss.
Bingo. Hell, I get picky about the pieces of sliced tomatoes that the deli clerk puts onto my sandwiches
With COVID one of my friends in the Denver metro area - so not a small town - tried InstaCart and will never use it again. She ordered 1 bunch of celery and received 1 rib of celery...meaning just one stalk torn off of the bunch. She ordered 1 pound of red potatoes and received 1 baby red potato. It was a few ounces....far from a pound. Her friend ordered blueberry ice cream and received cherry ice cream which she then had to return. Total pain!
Well, either your friend lied to you, or her friend lied to her, because that is not how Instacart works. After you take delivery of an order you receive an email asking if there were any problems. If there were, then you can not only indicate in general terms what the problem(s) was/were, but you can also specify the problem for each product that you received (or didn't receive, as the case may be). And if you received the wrong item (such as the wrong flavor ice cream in your example above), then you keep the item and they will either issue you a credit to your account or a credit to your charge card, whichever you prefer. They may even add an additional amount as a goodwill gesture. (I've had that happen as well.) But in no circumstance will you have to return the erroneous item that you received.
I've been using Instacart since March (as well as Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Pantry, Walmart & Costco) and have had incorrect items delivered on occasion, but it's no big deal and easily correctable. One humorous example was when I ordered 9 or 10 "BOGO" items from Publix via Instacart. For each BOGO item, I included an instruction to the shopper to make sure to purchase 2 in order to take advantage of the sale and if there was only 1 item available due to a stock shortage, not to buy it. The shopper misunderstood my instruction and actually picked up 4 of each item, resulting in my receiving double the amount of items that I wanted. (In one case, I actually specified that I wanted 4 items and I received 8!) Not only did Instacart not charge me for all of the extra items that I received, but they also told me that I could just keep all of the excess items as well.
Even with the occasional mishap or missing item, I've been very happy with the grocery delivery services I've used over the past nine months. So much so that I'll probably continue to use them even after the pandemic is over.
Many of the items I order online are not from the US. A lot of them come direct to me from factories in China. But you make a good point. I hadn't thought about produce coming from outside the US. In that case it would probably be most economical to bulk ship the produce to a US distribution center, and then send it to customers from there. But with the right infrastructure, it might be possible to have the product shipped to US consumers direct from other countries.
From my experience it is almost always economically feasible to cut out a middle man. I would expect that buying produce direct from a farm would be way cheaper then paying hundreds of warehouse employees, truck drivers, and supermarket employees to get it to you. But even if it costed more, personally I would be happy to pay extra to get fresh produce direct from a farm. The poor quality produce in supermarket is one of the reasons I just buy frozen food.
I would not expect the farmers to harvest a few items at a time. I would hope they could harvest and ship thousands of orders a day.
As to your last point. The US is an exporter of bell peppers, including chile peppers, so we do produce a good amount of red peppers in the US. It should be possible to find a US source from red peppers.
You can already go to farms and shop at farm stands and farmers markets!!!! The problem is ALL produce isn’t available year round. Where I live in the Northeast, most farm stands and farmers markets have shut down for the season. Why? There’s nothing left! The growing season is over. All that really remains are the apples in cold storage, potatoes from storage, winter squash, eggs, meat, grains from storage, and dairy products.
I specifically stated RED bell peppers. Bell peppers come in numerous colors and all do not taste the same. Green are the most common ones grown in the US. Just because we grow something doesn’t mean we sell it in our own grocery stores. Frequently exporting items makes them far more money. Chili peppers have nothing to do with bell peppers. Totally different type of pepper which isn’t sweet but instead is a hot pepper.
Well, either your friend lied to you, or her friend lied to her, because that is not how Instacart works. After you take delivery of an order you receive an email asking if there were any problems. If there were, then you can not only indicate in general terms what the problem(s) was/were, but you can also specify the problem for each product that you received (or didn't receive, as the case may be). And if you received the wrong item (such as the wrong flavor ice cream in your example above), then you keep the item and they will either issue you a credit to your account or a credit to your charge card, whichever you prefer. They may even add an additional amount as a goodwill gesture. (I've had that happen as well.) But in no circumstance will you have to return the erroneous item that you received.
I've been using Instacart since March (as well as Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Pantry, Walmart & Costco) and have had incorrect items delivered on occasion, but it's no big deal and easily correctable. One humorous example was when I ordered 9 or 10 "BOGO" items from Publix via Instacart. For each BOGO item, I included an instruction to the shopper to make sure to purchase 2 in order to take advantage of the sale and if there was only 1 item available due to a stock shortage, not to buy it. The shopper misunderstood my instruction and actually picked up 4 of each item, resulting in my receiving double the amount of items that I wanted. (In one case, I actually specified that I wanted 4 items and I received 8!) Not only did Instacart not charge me for all of the extra items that I received, but they also told me that I could just keep all of the excess items as well.
Even with the occasional mishap or missing item, I've been very happy with the grocery delivery services I've used over the past nine months. So much so that I'll probably continue to use them even after the pandemic is over.
No my friends didn’t lie. They showed photos of what they received. It makes no sense for my friend to lie about celery and potatoes. They didn’t get their order delivered. There are two options for instacart. Delivery or pickup. Both picked up their order. The one with the wrong ice cream returned it to the store immediately because no one in her house would eat it and she didn’t want to throw it away. What good is a credit on the celery or potato going to do? She couldn’t make her dinner that night.
I like to see what I'm getting firsthand, not some squishy tomatoes etc.
Yes, I think that's it. I don't want someone else picking out my produce.
I have a huge, modern supermarket that I can literally walk to in less than ten minutes. I usually don't unless I am only picking up a couple of things that are easy to carry home. But delivery for me seems silly when I can hop right there in a few minutes and get what I actually want to buy.
I also frequently buy the prepared foods. For example, my supermarket's prepared foods section has a four-vegetable "vegetarian meal deal" for $7. You choose four from the array of cooked vegetables from the array that they have, and it's enough vegetables for at least three meals. It's a great deal. You get a variety and don't have to do all the work of chopping, peeling, cutting up, etc.
I don't want to guess what they might have and order that over the phone or on the Internet. I want to SEE and choose them.
No my friends didn’t lie. They showed photos of what they received. It makes no sense for my friend to lie about celery and potatoes. They didn’t get their order delivered. There are two options for instacart. Delivery or pickup. Both picked up their order. The one with the wrong ice cream returned it to the store immediately because no one in her house would eat it and she didn’t want to throw it away. What good is a credit on the celery or potato going to do? She couldn’t make her dinner that night.
Then someone expressed it incorrectly. She said she "had to" return the item when she "chose to" return the item. You do not have to return items.
The credit is so that you are not charged for what you didn't order or receive. The delivery service cannot bend the laws of physics and teleport it there if it was left out. Just like anything else in life, when a provider cannot provide the goods or services all they can do is compensate monetarily.
Some people just like to shop. I have siblings that will spend a couple of hours at a grocery store just looking at everything. It is kind of their entertainment.
With COVID one of my friends in the Denver metro area - so not a small town - tried InstaCart and will never use it again. She ordered 1 bunch of celery and received 1 rib of celery...meaning just one stalk torn off of the bunch. She ordered 1 pound of red potatoes and received 1 baby red potato. It was a few ounces....far from a pound. Her friend ordered blueberry ice cream and received cherry ice cream which she then had to return. Total pain!
OMG, that's ridiculous of them! I can believe it because I've encountered a LOT of dumb people & I don't even get groceries delivered, so of course there are dumb people all over. No quality control.
No my friends didn’t lie. They showed photos of what they received. It makes no sense for my friend to lie about celery and potatoes. They didn’t get their order delivered. There are two options for instacart. Delivery or pickup. Both picked up their order. The one with the wrong ice cream returned it to the store immediately because no one in her house would eat it and she didn’t want to throw it away. What good is a credit on the celery or potato going to do? She couldn’t make her dinner that night.
1. Did you not pay attention to the part of your post that I bolded and to which I responded? Did you see anywhere in my response where I addressed potatoes or celery? I didn't think so.
2. Did you perhaps misread (or not pay attention to) the title of this thread? Let me refresh your memory: It specifically pertains to grocery deliveries. Let me repeat that: The title of this thread - - - not to mention my reply to your post - - - pertains specifically to grocery deliveries.
3. So to reiterate: In no circumstance does Instacart require you to return unacceptable or erroneously-received items that you had delivered to you.
You can already go to farms and shop at farm stands and farmers markets!!!! The problem is ALL produce isn’t available year round. Where I live in the Northeast, most farm stands and farmers markets have shut down for the season. Why? There’s nothing left! The growing season is over. All that really remains are the apples in cold storage, potatoes from storage, winter squash, eggs, meat, grains from storage, and dairy products.
When I lived in the city, I went to farmer's markets all the time. They were great. Great produce, and low prices. Now I live in a rural area and farmer's markets are few and far between. There is just not enough population here to make it worth while for farmers to sell at farmer's markets here. I will admit that I have never actually been to the local farmer's market here, because of the bad reviews. Pictures show few stands, and reports that they are all run by homeless people who buy the produce in local supermarkets, and then sell it at the farmer's market at inflated prices. As I have already said, the local supermarket produce is unacceptable to me. The frozen veggies that I buy taste as good if not better then the "fresh" produce sold here.
Anyway the point is that this is the 21st Century. We shouldn't have to go to a farmer's market to get good truly fresh produce. We should be able to order freshly picked produce online and and have it delivered in a few days. Unfortunately at this time nobody is offering a service like that.
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