Grocery Store Pick-Up Pros & Cons: How Smith’s, Walmart and Macey’s Compare

With our fast paced lives these days online shopping has become one of the most popular ways to shop. The convenience can be fitted around our busy lives. This trend has moved right into grocery shopping so, I thought I'd write a quick article comparing the pros and cons of  Smith's Food and Drug, Clicklist, the Rosie App. (Associated Food Stores, Macey's, Dan's, Fresh Market etc.) and Walmart grocery pick-up services. Hopefully it will help you decide if online grocery shopping is the right choice for you.

As a person who's always looking for a smart buy, I was curious about online pricing in-store pricing, so I randomly chose 12 items and put them to the store to online test. For this experiment, with some exceptions, I chose brand specific items just to make pricing across the board easier and tried to pick items most families shop for routinely.

Keep in mind this was a random list. I did not prepare for prices prior to going into the store. Normally in my week to week shopping I would shop the sales which vary by store chain and plan my meals around that. I used these only as an in-store to online price comparison. Not as an overall savings at the individual stores.

Macey's Total
In-store $30.19
Online $34.06
$3.87 cheaper in the store

Walmart Total
In-store $23.87
Online $24.26
$0.39 cheaper in the store

Smith's Total
In-store $25.75
Online $25.75
Broke even store vs. online

As far as my personal orders went, overall I was happy with all three. The pick up process was easy and the items I purchased were in good condition and overall items I would have chosen myself.

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Rosie App.

Rosie app. is a 3rd party company that has associated food stores
(Macey's, Lee's, Fresh Market, Peterson's, Winegars, Dan's). However,
not all stores participate. For my comparison, I chose Macey's because
it's closest participating store to me.

Pros:
•App is easy to use
•Able to go through and star your favorites so you can
shop more easily, without looking though things you don't
usually purchase.

Con's
• $1.99 Service Fee
•You can't use regular paper coupons, however you can use your
Perks (or other store rewards savings).
•$30 minimum order

Biggest Con:
•While the app. does specify items that are on sale, it doesn't tell you which items
are part of a mix and match sale. You'll need to check the ad for that. In my example I would have saved tremendously on Peanut Butter by simply purchasing (2) of a different brand and quantity.

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Walmart Grocery:

Pros:
•It's completely free (others charge)
•Use code WOWFRESH and get $10 off your first order
•Ordering process is easy and user friendly

Cons:
•They don't take paper coupons, however you can use Savings Catcher with it.
Savings Catcher is an app. that searches store ads in your area for lower
prices. If they find them, they will put the difference in your Savings Catcher
reward account. You can then use the money at Walmart or Walmart.com.
•$30 minimum order

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Smith's Clicklist:

With Clicklist, I highly recommend you follow Crazy4Smiths.com. Their
website has a saveable list building feature that makes it easy
to add items to your Clicklist. Crazy4Smith's also matches sales with coupons making it easy for you to locate the biggest savings.

Pros:
•They take regular paper coupons
•It works with their digital coupons (can not be combined)
•It's user friendly and integrates with their ad.
•There's no minimum purchase
•They often have high value coupons (some for free
products) available for Clicklist customers only
•Utilize the special instructions section (if you like green
bananas tell them.

Cons:
•It's free for the first 3 times, then it's $4.50 each time. The
special offers are nice though because they usually offset
the cost of the fee
•Mix and Match sales are deducted if you purchase in the correct quantities, but the app. doesn't tell you which items are on Mega Event.

In my example, I would have saved $5.00 by simply adding 1 more Jif and one more Cereal items to my cart (essentially making them free). 

Secret Weapon: To remedy this I'd highly recommend you follow Crazy4Smiths.com to find the full list of ALL the items you'll find on sale at Smith's.

Overall, I'd say this new way of putting food on the table is a great convenience. The stores pickers seemed to do a good job and you are easily able to add some special directions. But, like all things of convenience, you'll want to be prepared to pay for it.