Grocery shopping is an essential part of adulthood. Having fast food for every meal is expensive, unhealthy and unrealistic. For that reason — a regular trip to the grocery store is a regular habit in nearly every American household, regardless of demographics.
Although it is a basic necessity, grocery shopping can be quite tedious at times. Parking lots get crowded, shopping carts are difficult to handle, and loading endless bags of food from your car to your house is exhausting. As a necessity, grocery shopping shouldn’t feel like such a huge burden.
Hundreds of years of commercial shopping have taught humanity a thing or two about how to shop. Here are some outside-the-box ideas that can help you with your own grocery shopping:
1. Take advantage of grocery pick-up
While most people will remember days of covid-19 Difficult, frustrating and downright frustrating, many innovations emerged during this period. Businesses worldwide have developed solutions that will make products and services accessible to consumers while minimizing the risk of transmission. One such innovation that really took off in the early days of the coronavirus is grocery pick-up options.
Today, you can complete a digital shopping cart filled with all the items you want to buy. You will pay when you check out online. Once the order is processed, an employee will collect all the items you have selected and place them in a compact bin.
When you create an order, you also select a pickup time. This is when your order will be ready for you. Just drive to the designated location, and an employee will load all the groceries into your car for you. All you have to do now is drive home and unload. Easy as pie!
2. Have your food delivered
An even easier option than grocery pick-up is to have your groceries delivered directly to your home from the store. Major grocery chains have begun building fleets of company vehicles that can quickly and safely deliver various goods directly to consumers.
The main difference here is that grocery delivery usually comes with some sort of service charge. Finally, the company has to send a vehicle and personnel to your specific address to make the delivery. That convenience is worth it to some, but simply opting for an assembled order will be at least a touch cheaper.
If you only need a couple of items, you can look into more local delivery options like DoorDash and UberEats. Not only can you get restaurant orders to go, some delivery services will pick up everything from hair products to over-the-counter medications if you don’t have time to go to the store yourself.
3. Download helpful apps
Major grocery chains are often downloadable smartphone application It can be of great service to you. These apps have search capabilities that can tell you exactly where items are located, what’s still in stock, and which products can or can’t be shipped to your home.
If you really want to get into the weeds, you can use an app from your favorite grocery store to plan a shopping route across its aisles. By finding the location of each item on your shopping list, you can map out a path that takes you to everything you need without ever backtracking.
Even if you don’t need to plan a specific route through the store, pre-downloading the app to your mobile device can be a good idea for several reasons. If you think of a last-minute item that wasn’t originally on your list, you can find it quickly and in less time. You can also use the app to check prices that aren’t listed or to see if there are any special deals going on that day.
4. Divide and conquer
Many parents will tell you that grocery shopping with their children is one of the most difficult tasks for them to complete. If you’re currently raising a few children, you can probably empathize. Shopping with kids is widely recognized as an inefficient endeavor. However, there are some creative ways you can use to enlist their help instead of fighting them throughout the journey.
A normal shopping trip can be turned into a game of hide-and-seek, a scavenger hunt, or even a relay race. Come up with a game that you think your little ones will enjoy. Be sure to keep it respectful; Other shoppers should not be inconvenienced or disturbed by your family’s actions.
While the ultimate goal is to make shopping more enjoyable and efficient, you should always make safety a high priority. Make sure your kids don’t wander unaccompanied. A tag team effort will get the job done just as well, without adding any extra worry to your work.
5. Check the store’s Google page
Google is the world’s most popular search engine for good reason. This online tool provides high quality information at an amazing speed on almost any electronic device. An online search may be what brought you to this article in the first place. In addition to helping you easily find the information you’re looking for, some others are less well known Tools that Google provides Which can prove useful.
Find the grocery store you plan to visit. When the correct store pops up, click on it to bring up a new Google View that shows the various stores in the area next to a local map. When you select a business, you can see when the store is busiest and during which hours there is no foot traffic.
While this information is only an estimate, it can help you choose the best time to run your grocery store. Instead of going right after work when the store is full, consider waiting to go a little later when fewer people are expected to be in attendance. The aisles will be less crowded, and the checkout lines will be much shorter, meaning you’ll ultimately spend less time on your end.
6. Get a personal shopper
Did you know there is such a thing as a personal shopper? This job is just what it sounds like. A personal shopper goes shopping on behalf of another person. This is a common service provided to the elderly or others who cannot leave their homes for one reason or another.
A personal shopper may assist you from time to time. They basically combine the benefits of grocery pick-up and delivery into one service. The main difference is that you can communicate more closely with your personal shopper. This becomes an ideal option if you specialize in certain items, such as meat production or cuts.
Grocery shopping can never be 100 percent fun. However, if you put your mind to it, you can make it more efficient and enjoyable. With all the grocery shopping you’ll end up doing over the years, it’s definitely worth looking for areas of improvement.
Featured Image Credit: Photo by Matthews Senali; Paxels; Thank you!
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