Shipt Wrecked

Sometimes, things seem great.  Sometimes, things seem to be worth the cost.  Sometimes, things make you think "Well, technology, you're becoming more worthwhile in my life." 

SHIPT.  You did seem great.  You did seem to be worth the cost (and perhaps then some).  You did make me reconsider my on-again-off-again love affair with technology (mostly off-again...seriously, I try to get over you and you keep hanging around and hanging around and making me think twice/thrice/fourthice about how much I should love you.

But Shipt...you bite.  Big time.

First blush - $100 a year to have someone else pick up my groceries for me and then deliver them to me?!?  I'm just about as cheap as they come with new-fangeled doo-hickies and thing-a-ma-bobs, but this seems like moolah well spent. 

We be cheap around this here place.  I do not own/use a smart phone.  The boy does not own/use a smart phone.  I hear that there's a new one coming out.  $1000.  That (doesn't) make sense.

Second blush - My new grocery store situation has expanded by a couple of possibilities, none of which are regularly not busy.  And, I don't have the luxury of much kid-free time to stroll happily up & down the aisles in my pixie chinos & wedges like one might see in a happy-camper advertisement.  My kids enjoy racing the shopping cart up and down the toothpaste aisles, talking LOUDLY even if I'm standing right behind them, and engaging in games of we'll-pretend-that-Mommy-can't-see-us.  I maybe pretended that they weren't my children and calmly went to the frozen section & found 2 pints of ice cream just this week.  Hypothetically speaking.  Basically, it's a bit of a hassle to take them, and we're a 1-small, 1-medium trips a week kind of family now.

Third blush - The price went down a few weeks ago.  Really down.  Like 50% down.  And I signed up.  I'ma never gonna take those kids to that place again, at least for a year while someone else endures the struggle for me.

Fourth blush - I hated it.  I hated the mark-ups on just about everything (1-lb. of grapes for $14? a box of basic Puffs for $2.49?)  I hated the limited selection (for the love of a bag of organic carrots...I know they're lurking somewhere!).  I hated the time it took me to scroll endlessly through too much I'm-never-going-to-buy-this stuff in order to find the 1 kind of yogurt that I want.  I figure that the time spent scrolling would go down the more I used the service and could just reference back against my previous orders.  Admittedly, I like that part.  But it took a s-w-e-e-t forever to get my $35 order when factoring in cost & actual want/need.  Even taking my children with me, I can do that quicker.

Fifth blush - Hidden costs are for the birds.  I didn't know that there would be mark-ups.  Silly me to think that once I paid for a service, I would then pay the cost that the brick & mortar store charges.  And for someone who has never had pizza delivered and who almost never tips when it is optional because seriously, a $35 haircut doesn't need to have an additional charge, I did not see the tipping of the Shipt person coming.  That was it for me.

I had it for about 48-hours.  I made one order with it.  I like it in theory, and I think that there are other slightly different services that may be more worth my time/money, but this one just is NOT.  But, the person I talked with via live chat on a Sunday afternoon was lovely and refunded the service fee without question.

Props to those who are making these grocery services work.  Back when I was a teenager and helping my grandparents with their grocery shopping, I had a couple of thoughts about how cool this kind of a personalized grocery shopper could be.  But gag.  If this is the best it can be...pass.