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Grocery Pickups, doing them for the first time

June 11, 2024 03:27PM
It was Kroger. I reordered a bunch of stuff. One item showed low stock. I tried ordering chicken livers fresh from another store. They were out of stock. So two items were accounted for as possible. But all 8. I performed the shop a the same location about 3 days later. Did not have anything out of stock.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230
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More About Grocery Store Mystery Shopping
June 11, 2024 03:28PM
They did not say. I did not have back up on three items. Three were Weekly Digital Deals. Two had back ups, but one was low stock.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230
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June 11, 2024 05:59PM
deleted

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2024 06:04PM by shopnyc.
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June 16, 2024 05:19PM
@whosear wrote:

They did not say. I did not have back up on three items. Three were Weekly Digital Deals. Two had back ups, but one was low stock.

Maybe I'm overly cautious but I never order anything that shows low stock, and would never order anything without a backup item. The job says to specify one, and I figure I can get whatever it is at another time, either in store or later.

I have seen where the weekly specials are gone when my order is filled. I often hesitate on the "buy three etc." type offers. My final pickup of this round I had one substitute that was neither part of my order nor the backup. No mention was ever made that I had a substitution, text or verbal. The person bringing out the order may not have known since I didn't even get the text notification. The item was similar and a reasonable sub and I still got my "pick three" discount. I can only guess that the "Picker" didn't flag out of stock.

For substitutions is you don't see a good option offered at first, sometimes (not always) you can find one by searching.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2024 10:41PM by melg.
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June 16, 2024 11:50PM
Has anybody noticed that the items you pick as substitutions don't have to relate to the original item in any way? I've picked candles as substitutes for canned vegetables.

If your path dictates you walk through hell, do it as though you own the place. -unknown
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June 20, 2024 04:03AM
There are some items like produce that I do not select a back up. Meats and fish for another, but I rarely order then as part of these shops.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230
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June 20, 2024 06:10AM
@drdoggie00 wrote:

Has anybody noticed that the items you pick as substitutions don't have to relate to the original item in any way? I've picked candles as substitutes for canned vegetables.

That was not my experience. The location that I did last month gave me great substitutions. I ordered generic brands, and they gave me name brands. I ordered a 99 cent tiny packet of almonds in 4 different flavors. They cancelled 3 of them and gave me a whole can of almonds instead (for 99 cents). I ordered strawberry almond milk yogurt, and they gave me vanilla almond milk yogurt.
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June 20, 2024 09:20AM
@BayShopper22 wrote:

That was not my experience. The location that I did last month gave me great substitutions. I ordered generic brands, and they gave me name brands. I ordered a 99 cent tiny packet of almonds in 4 different flavors. They cancelled 3 of them and gave me a whole can of almonds instead (for 99 cents). I ordered strawberry almond milk yogurt, and they gave me vanilla almond milk yogurt.
But were those the items you set up as substitutions when you made the order, Bay? I was talking about during the order process itself. If you're ordering canned green beans, it'll suggest other brands/varieties/sizes of green beans and maybe other canned veggies, but you don't have to select your substitute item from what they offer; you can search for Doritos (for example) and have that be your designated substitute for green beans (or any other item.) When you choose a substitute, the two items don't have to be in the same category at all.

This comes in handy when I order something like cottage cheese. I'm picky about brand, size, and variety, and if they're out of what I want, I'd rather have my selected substitute (even if it's Doritos) than another cottage cheese.

Now, if I didn't select a substitute item and Kroger gave me Doritos when I ordered canned green beans, then yeah, I'd have something to say to them about that.

If your path dictates you walk through hell, do it as though you own the place. -unknown


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2024 09:22AM by drdoggie00.
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June 20, 2024 09:29AM
@whosear wrote:

There are some items like produce that I do not select a back up. Meats and fish for another, but I rarely order then as part of these shops.
Bananas are the only produce I'll buy on a pick-up, regardless if it's a shop or not. I don't specify a backup, but I do request green bananas (which is usually ignored because my Kroger won't put out bananas until they're fully ripe and almost covered in spots.)

If your path dictates you walk through hell, do it as though you own the place. -unknown
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June 20, 2024 09:23PM
@drdoggie00 wrote:

Bananas are the only produce I'll buy on a pick-up, regardless if it's a shop or not. I don't specify a backup, but I do request green bananas (which is usually ignored because my Kroger won't put out bananas until they're fully ripe and almost covered in spots.)

the cool thing about getting produce on pick up is that if what you are given isn't appropriate or is bad, you can request a refund in the app. It will be automatically refunded to your payment method almost immediately. I found this out because someone who knows nothing about produce seemed to think that mushy avocados are ok, rather than looking for good ones. There have been several times when I've been in local Kroger stores that ALL of the avocados out for sale are so overripe that they are inedible.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2024 09:26PM by Morledzep.
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June 25, 2024 03:52PM
I will order individual produce item such as bell peppers or apples, fresh greens that come in the boxes, strawberries and summer squash. Usually they are fine.
I no longer order bagged apples. Too hard for them to tell if there's a bad apple in the bunch. A neighbor gives me avocados but I would never buy a bag of avos, only singles, green with a bit of stem left (they rot from the stem end).

I have used the instant refund a few times.

And yes, sometimes the suggested substitutes are strange. And sometimes you can't request the substitute you want. If you select Pickup under "Ways to Shop" before adding each item then out of stocks should be fewer. Sometimes for a big ticket item I'll open a second window and search for my desired substitute.

Several times I've been given a large sized item if both they were out of the item and the sub.

One of my pet peeves is that if I order 1 or 2 of some produce, they pick 1 or 2 pieces so I never know how much it will weigh. Maybe next order I will try asking for one pound in my comments.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2024 03:55PM by melg.
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