About a year and a half ago, I got my groceries delivered for the first time. From then on, I have eliminated going to the grocery store for my large shopping trips. There are always the occasional times where I need to stop at the grocery store to get something I need fresh, like fish, or a specialty item, but if I can avoid it, I do. Why do I get my groceries delivered rather than shopping in person? Here are 4 reasons getting your groceries delivered is better than shopping in person.
1) Save Time
The most obvious reason that grocery shopping online and having your order delivered to your door is better than making a trip to the grocery store is because it saves you time. By getting your groceries delivered you eliminate your commute to and from the store altogether. Depending where you live, this could be a huge amount of time. The closest grocery store to my parents, for example, is 10 minutes away. If they go grocery shopping every week, that amounts to 80 minutes a month or 960 minutes a year. This means that spend 16 hours each year just driving to and from the grocery store.
In addition to saving on commuting time, it is much quicker to add things to your cart online than it is to physically put them in your cart in the store. In the grocery store, the food is spread out making you have to stop in almost every aisle most times in order to grab everything you need. When you’re online you can simply type the item you need into the search bar, it pops up on your screen and you click the “add to cart” button and you’re onto the next item. You don’t have to worry about going back to an aisle if you forgot something while you were there since you can just type things and add them to your cart instantly.
2) Buy More Sale Items
Although I grocery shop from the comfort of my own home, I still find it helpful to create a list to reference when I’m adding things to my online shopping cart. However, I start my shopping by browsing the “sale” section online first. That way if I was planning on making a certain dish during the week but realize that a majority of the items I would need are not on sale, I can easily pick another recipe based on what is on sale. This is harder to do when you’re in the store because it takes more time to Google recipes while in the store and its more time consuming to have to go to various aisles to see if each item is on sale.
Oftentimes I plan my dinners around what is on sale online. While you can do this based on flyers from the grocery store, as well, the flyers can only fit so much in them and you will see there are more sale items when you get to the store that you did not previously see in the flyer.
3) Save Money
It’s much easier to have your shopping cart tallied up for you rather than having to try to keep a tally in your head. There are so many times when I am shopping in person and I’m shocked by the total when I’m checking out. While I could remove items at the checkout line if the total exceeds what I was hoping to spend, it is a bit of a hassle. I am much more conscious of my total when I’m shopping online because it is present the whole time I am shopping. Seeing how things add up as I’m shopping makes me make better decisions. I am able to consider whether or not I really need everything in my cart or if I can wait until certain items go on sale. There is a lot more pressure once you’re in a checkout line at the store, so I usually just sigh and swipe my credit card.
4) It’s Convenient
Why do you think so many people have Amazon Prime memberships? For convenience. People know that they could go to the store and buy the item they need, but why would they when they could have it delivered to them? The last thing I want to do after working an 8-hour day and commuting 45 minutes to and from work is go to the grocery store. I love the convenience of scheduling my groceries to be delivered when I need them. When you work full-time, your weekends are generally spent doing things you want to do, like spending time with friends and family, so to be able to eliminate even just one chore, is great.
