HOMEGROCER.COM
www.homegrocer.com; website for grocery shopping; service available in Orange County.
While camped at home recently with the flu bug, carting a comforter around the house the way Linus from “Peanuts” carried his blanket, the idea of dragging myself to the grocery store seemed ill-advised. What better time to take the plunge into online grocery shopping? I figured with a few clicks I could in no time be huddled again under my blanket until the delivery guy showed up. Not so fast, I discovered. Thirty minutes later I had all of five items in my virtual cart and was finding the process pretty tedious. Granted, my 56K-modem, non-DSL home computer isn’t as fast as many setups, and this was my initial tour through the website. Pricing brought mixed reactions. I was pleasantly surprised by the cost of the dairy products, produce and packaged goods, but some of the meat and seafood was twice the supermarket price. Despite my startup glitches, I found the site graphically attractive and uncomplicated, with plentiful delivery times. Some colleagues told me they have found the service to be superb. Convenient? Sure. A time-saver? Not particularly. So while one part of my brain was telling me I was being too picky and to just keep clicking, another little voice kept telling me to look at the clock and the size of my list. At the rate I was going, this was going to be a 2 +-hour shopping trip. The store would only take an hour. I regretfully signed off, dropped the comforter and got dressed.
