Has anyone done one of these shops? It's a grocery store app purchase. It's new to me!

I love Flashfood and buy from them weekly. The shops are extremely easy.

Yes, I've done a couple of them now. Very easy to do. My theory is that they're using them to move merchandise, because I don't see a lot of people ordering at the store I do it at (the stuff does not disappear from the list of available items).

I get an awful lot of food through Flashfood but I've never seen mystery shops for them. Everything is at least 50% off here, often much more. We have about seven stores in town, all owned by Loblaws, that offer Flashfood. Most move quickly but the stuff in some of the smaller ones is not as attractive and sits around, like the baby sunscreen being offered in the winter!

There does not seem to be any rotation on these, you can do multiples per week. Unfortunately it's not that convenient for me and none of the stuff I'm getting is stuff I really NEED. If we ate meat it would probably be easier to use all the stuff. That said, I am enjoying the stuff I got on this latest shop.

I'm going to have to try and figure out which company does them and hope they have shops here. Do they tell you what you have to buy?

No, you just have to spend $15.

Are we allowed to say what platform the shops are on? It's on one of the multi-company platforms.

MisterBill, I think we are. (And in this case it happens to be iSecretShop.)

@NinS wrote:

MisterBill, I think we are. (And in this case it happens to be iSecretShop.)

Well in that case they should be able to find the shop if it's available in their area, since you do not need to sign up with each individual company in order to see their shops! Just need to agree to their ICA to take a shop.

The locations offered are a little out of the way for me. Strange that three of the same grocery stores are near me, but they are not on the assignment list.

@marg704 wrote:

The locations offered are a little out of the way for me. Strange that three of the same grocery stores are near me, but they are not on the assignment list.

My theory is that they're doing these to increase the business, at least for the store in my area where it doesn't seem that many people are using it. Maybe your purchases are giving your store business is causing them not to need to be shopped . Of course, that is just a guess.

I took another shop for tomorrow since it was showing with a $2 bonus.

When I saw the title I thought it said Flash Flood **lol**

DUGH

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2021 12:54AM by Isaiah4031a.

I had an interesting experience on my shop today. When I got there, the shelf was cleared of all the bakery items that there supposed to be available. Then, they could not find a total of four of the eight items I ordered. Two were bakery items, one pet toy and one box of k-cups. They had to call over a supervisor, and she went to the bakery and got me fresh replacements, so that worked out to my advantage. For the k-cups, she gave me my choice of any flavor from that brand from the shelf, and for the pet toy I was also able to pick something from the shelf.

I have no idea what happened to the bakery items since they were only dated today and there are other items still in the app dated a few days out that were not there (which presumably means that they will have this same problem if anyone buys them). For the k-cups, I'm guessing that someone took the wrong flavor since they had three boxes of one flavor available, but the app says there are only two. Which brings me to an observation I made about this whole setup. At the store I shop at, they do not have to scan items as they give them to you, and the orders are certainly not pulled and ready to pickup when you get there. I'm guessing that this is how it works at all stores, but obviously I do not know for sure. Can someone who has used this please confirm?

Good news is that what I expected would be a boring shop got interesting. I just hope that my report does not let them know who I am!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2021 01:36AM by MisterBill.

My local stores tell you to take it up with Flashfood if the item is missing. They will refund your money in around ten days.

@Niner wrote:

My local stores tell you to take it up with Flashfood if the item is missing. They will refund your money in around ten days.

How does FF know that you didn't get it? Honor system of your telling them? Or do they enter something on the iPad?

@MisterBill wrote:

@Niner wrote:

My local stores tell you to take it up with Flashfood if the item is missing. They will refund your money in around ten days.

How does FF know that you didn't get it? Honor system of your telling them? Or do they enter something on the iPad?

You need to send an email telling them if the item was not there. You can also let them know if the item was spoiled, which has happened to me before on multiple occasions.

I keep checking the FlashFood app before assigning, and there isn't much food available. The store I would go to has less than 20 items and I really wouldn't use them. Five of the items are eggs.

@marg704 wrote:

I keep checking the FlashFood app before assigning, and there isn't much food available. The store I would go to has less than 20 items and I really wouldn't use them. Five of the items are eggs.

I have a shop scheduled for tomorrow and have been checking to see what's available since I could have moved it up. We don't eat meat, so I've been looking for bakery items, and they have not had a great selection, in fact one day they had nothing. My last couple of shops I got 4-oacks of muffins, and they were pretty good, so I would order those again. But no muffins available today.

I guess worst case if I have to pad with stuff I don't need I will bring it to the local food pantry.

I love these shops! Unfortunately the store in my area that usually has the best selection (lobster, oysters, and other stuff I love) is too far to drive. But there are several other stores in the program near me. I've purchased from the app even when not doing a shop.

One item wasn't available when I went to pick up my order a couple of weeks ago, and they substituted the time from the regular department for me. Everything else has always been there when I pick up, but sometimes the clerk has a hard time finding them.

They must have found other shoppers (or just one person) to take a bunch of shops because there's nothing available until next week. I was hoping to get one for this weekend or early in the week.

I do question what they want us to say in the question about customer service. It makes no sense to keep going to customer service each time to ask where to pick up my order, and I don't understand about walking me to the area. Unless they mean the employee who gets the food for me, which in my case is the self-checkout cashier.

For those who use Flashfood, what does your store do for a bakery item that has a sale price on it? Do they discount it based on the regular price of the sale price? Tops is the supermarket in my area that does FF, and I got two sale bakery items at different stores last week. One store marked over the sale price, the other tore off that piece of the label (but just where the sale price was, not the whole piece that showed it was on sale). I ended up paying more at 50% off for expiring merchandise than I would have at the sale price! Then I checked again today since there is another shop available, and they have cupcakes that they are selling for $2.99 based on a regular price of $5.99. But the photo of the item shows a sale price of $2.50 (they didn't tear or mark over the price in the photo)!!! I complained about this practice in my last shop, we'll see if they do anything about it. And I just checked the other store I bought from, and they also have cupcakes listed with the sale price showing on the sticker.

I bought one of the $5 assorted fruit boxes last week at a store I don't usually shop, and it was a much better deal than at my local store. They gave me a bag of green grapes that were still in good condition, five Asian pears, a bunch of regular pears, a few apples, two bananas and two Sumo oranges. The box was worth at least $10, and probably more. At my local store you don't get nearly that much and the boxes are often barely worth $5.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2021 05:00PM by MisterBill.

Is this a shop or a service?

If it's a service, I signed up a while ago when I joined Imperfect Foods, but they had nothing in my area.

@HonnyBrown wrote:

Is this a shop or a service?

If it's a service, I signed up a while ago when I joined Imperfect Foods, but they had nothing in my area.

It's a shop of a service . But you have to go pick it up yourself.

This is my first FF shop. After I buy and pick up my items, I'm to go to customer service for "review." Will they give me an itemized receipt? Thx.

@gladysfarfel wrote:

This is my first FF shop. After I buy and pick up my items, I'm to go to customer service for "review." Will they give me an itemized receipt? Thx.

No paper receipts. You have to grab a screenshot from the app. They don't even email you when you place an order. It's a very strange setup. I did one today and had a different experience. I decided to ask CS where to go for pickup. She told me it was near self-scan (which I knew since I've done the shop before) but then a supervisor overheard and offered to walk me over and got my stuff for me. Usually I have to ask the self-scan cashier. I wonder if they figured out who I was or maybe they got my negative report and got complaints from FF or corporate. She must have been in charge of FF things there because she knew exactly where everything was.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2021 01:22AM by MisterBill.

Thanks, MisterBill. I completed this shop and the only trouble I had was figuring out how to send the receipt in the app to my computer (obviously, I'm no techie). I bought two boxes of fresh produce, and some salads and cheese. I'd like to do this again. Don't know if there's any kind of rotation schedule.

Easy. A good deal.I have only done one. Issues with missing items on shelf, new to my store, this was fixed. A good deal all around. Only "rotation" is not doing one too close, less than five days? at same store location. I even don't mind driving a bit farther if I can add to the route. But I am trying to keep it close to home OR confident it can be a route stop. I already shop the store a lot that is offering it near me.

No rotation that I have been able to determine. I actually took a shop for later in the month because last month they had all been taken when I tried to get another one. But I did two at the same location in the past week.

Ended up with another sale bakery item that I overpaid for this time, they didn't even mark over the sale price this time, so it gave me something to complain about. I'd complain to the company, but I would hope that putting it in my report accomplishes that.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2021 04:38PM by MisterBill.

So I have a shop scheduled for today, and all the bakery items expired yesterday and are gone (except for a couple of danish strips, which claim to have a date of 3/31 but I'm sure are wrong) and there are no produce items. I don't need meat or other stuff, so I will probably move the shop to Tuesday and hope they add stuff. Will also complain about it in my report. I might buy one of the danish items just to verify the date is wrong and write about it. It also has a crossed out sale price (and the price they are discounting on is the regular price), so I'd have something else to write about.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2021 06:53PM by MisterBill.

I thought perhaps Flash opened her own restaurant

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

When I saw the title I thought it said Flash Flood **lol**

DUGH