Curbside Pickup for Groceries

[JaniceSW]

I have never ordered groceries online and then picked them up curbside so I have a few questions I am hoping a few of you might be able to answer. I am referring to either Walmart or Meijer.

1.  Can you usually pickup your order the same day?  Are there time periods you pick from?  How long are they?  15 min, 30 min, or what?

2.  Do you usually have accurate orders?

3.  Have you used this process for items like meat or fruit of vegetables?  Can you specify exactly what you want, like fairly green bananas?  Do you usually get good quality products?

4.  Can you use coupons or giftcards/ecards?

5.  If you order items like ice cream or frozen dinners, are they still well frozen?

6.  Is there anything you have learned that I should know before doing this that will make it better of worse?

Please let me know your experiences.  I am seriously considering trying this but would just like a little "up front" info. Thanks beforehand to all of you who help!

[teresa3200]

At our Walmart we can usually pick up the same day. right after covid started it was usually 2 days later.
The order is usually fairly accurate, you do have an option to get substitutes or not. I haven't seen an option for the freshness or ripeness of the produce though, although it is usually pretty ripe.
The giftcard can be used like a cc as long as you have numbers and not a bar code. No coupons though.
I have had an item charged that was not in my order. Actually it was 2 packs of the same thing. At first I called the store and they gave me credit for 1. Then I looked on the email receipt and on there you have the option to say something was bad or missing. They gave me credit for the other one. But I could had just done that from the beginning and not dealt with the store.
Also make sure to look at your order and substitution options so you uncheck anything that you do not want substituted. One time I order a great value item and they didnt have it so they substituted 2 of the brand name.

[pstovall]

I haven't done this personally but my husband and kids have.  I was shocked at the long waits back in March, a couple of days and then you might have to wait in your car up to an hour at your appointment time.  I think all that is much better now.  If I didn't have anyone to go inside of a store for me, I would definitely take advantage of this service.  My husband has used coupons.  He would tell them when they first brought out his groceries and they would take off the amount right there at the car.  We sometimes would get substitutions if they didn't have the exact brand we'd asked for.  It was never a problem.

[ktheodos]

I have never ordered curbside for either of those..only in store for Walmart...I have worked for Instacart and Shipt as well as delivery services like DoorDash, Postmates, and GrubHub so could comment on those if desired.

[plennis]

We had a family member get very ill in January, so I have been doing curbside or delivery since then.  I have only had a couple of problems, but the store quickly took care of it.  I like the curbside when I have the time because if I do not like something I can return right then.  One time I ordered the small individual salads, 5 of them, and they brought all out with that days dates.  I refused them and now I always ask them to put the oldest dates for all perishables because I usually order for a week at a time.  I go on line and do the digital coupons, so they show up in store, delivery or curbside.    I go to Kroger and Walmart.  I have also done Target curbside for other things and have no problem there.  They have all gotten way more efficient from the beginning of this year to now.  I also spend less since I am not doing any impulse buying.

[mrisha]

I have not done the curbside thing, but do you all think the stores will continue to have curbside delivery?  It is a good program that seems to work really well for all who order online

[mrsmere]

I have never tried this  but it can be convenient for someone who needs it or don't want to go in or unable to walk around the store.

[JaniceSW]

I am looking forward to trying curbside soon, and once I have I will tell you all about my experience.  I intend to use several ecards and some coupons I have.  We'll see how it goes!

[countrygirl12]

I have not done the curbside thing, but do you all think the stores will continue to have curbside delivery?  It is a good program that seems to work really well for all who order online

Things are changing and it has nothing to do with a big scary virus that has a 99% chance of recovery.  Walmart has been moving toward online sales for several years.  The less customers who are actually inside the store the less employees they need.  Saves them money.

[cathy37]

I have never tried this service mainly because when buying groceries, I like to pick out my own meats, fruits and vegetables.

[UGetPaid]

I have never ordered groceries online and then picked them up curbside so I have a few questions I am hoping a few of you might be able to answer. I am referring to either Walmart or Meijer.

1.  Can you usually pickup your order the same day?  Are there time periods you pick from?  How long are they?  15 min, 30 min, or what?

2.  Do you usually have accurate orders?

3.  Have you used this process for items like meat or fruit of vegetables?  Can you specify exactly what you want, like fairly green bananas?  Do you usually get good quality products?

4.  Can you use coupons or giftcards/ecards?

5.  If you order items like ice cream or frozen dinners, are they still well frozen?

6.  Is there anything you have learned that I should know before doing this that will make it better of worse?

Please let me know your experiences.  I am seriously considering trying this but would just like a little "up front" info. Thanks beforehand to all of you who help!

We have not done it often, but have on occasion. Mostly at Kroger - so I don't know if the same exact policies apply to the other stores you asked about. I would think probably so, but they might be slightly different.


1. It depends on the store and how busy they are. I think most of the time our Kroger store requires a day notice. I can place an order on Monday evening and select various time slots as early as Tuesday morning to pick up my order. There may have been the option for same day pickup, but on heavier busy days when they had a lot of people placing pickup orders it was sometimes a day or two before the earliest pick up time slot available.


They usually have one hour pickup windows. Until just recently when they added a few more, our Kroger only had four pick up slots. In my experience, many shoppers would arrive at the earliest part of their pickup window. So if we had a 1:00-2:00 pick up - I usually waited until 1:15 or 1:30 to get there - otherwise I was often waiting for others to get loaded up and drive away before I had an open bay to pull into.


2. The orders have always been super accurate. They are very precise in pulling the items you order. They always let us know in advance at pickup if they had to substitute any items that were not the exact size or brand/variety ordered and they make sure that any substitutions are approved by you before totaling up and billing your order. On a few occasions they have even substituted a higher priced item and still only charged us for the lower item's advertised price.


3. We haven't used pickup for fresh meats or vegetables since we are pretty picky about selecting our own choices when it comes to this - so I could not say. I would imagine that you can specify your preference and would hope they observe your requests, but don't know for certain.


4. They have always asked us in advance of finalizing the order if we have any paper coupons. I think we have always provided a payment source (credit/debit card) in advance when we place the order online and they just run it through after they make and substitution or coupon adjustments. I would assume that if you are using a gift card, you could probably submit it when you place the order - but don't quote me on that - just making an assumption.


5. All of the cold and frozen stuff stays cold and frozen. Ice cream has never been a problem. I'm pretty sure they keep any items in the cooler or freezer right up until the time that you arrive for pickup.


6. I can't think of anything to add here other than making sure that you order the right items online. They have never made any mistakes in filling the orders we've placed; but we have gotten home and found a wrong item or two before, only to go back to the order and discovered that we checked off the wrong item. One time I asked my wife to get the fully cooked sausage crumbles and she clicked the Morning Star vegetable based crumbles instead of the "real thing". One or two other times, we clicked the wrong item after doing a search. They always have given us exactly what we ask for - and they only confirm substitutions if the exact item you ordered was not available.

[UGetPaid]

Walmart has been moving toward online sales for several years.  The less customers who are actually inside the store the less employees they need.  Saves them money.

That's true to an extent. But these days when we go to Kroger - the largest number of visible employees (on the floor) are the 'personal shoppers' who are roaming the aisles filling the curbside pickup orders!