The first time was really painful!

Yes! The first time was painful in the extreme! It took me 3 hours to do my online shopping with PnP!

About 8 years after PnP first introduced online shopping, I attempted to do my shopping this way. I have always hated shopping, so this seemed like a good idea. It was a disaster; it took me 5 years to recover! www.picknpay.co.za. That’s how painful the experience was.

My first experience was daunting; I did the 3 hour shop over 2 days!  When the shopping arrived some items weren’t there and I had to take a lot of items back which took another 2 hours, so actually, my first online shopping experience took 5 hours not 3.

The reason I had to return goods was that I hadn’t specified ‘No substitutions’ or even ‘kosher only’. Also, when I do a physical shop, I always check to see if the product is Kosher or not.  With online, not everything had a picture and the Kashrut department didn’t have a nice online search database.

Some of what I ordered did not arrive and I have since learned from experience, that choosing a delivery date between the 26^th and the 5th is not a good idea because the shelves are often empty after pay day.

Now my shopping takes me 30 minutes.  It would take less, but I have to make a note on each individual item, if I want the personal shopper to use their own discretion or if I want kosher or not to substitute at all, if the product I chose is out of stock!

An absolute when doing online shopping is to draw up a shopping list of items that you know, without a doubt, you will order each month. You then select these items and save the list as a standard shopping list. This is going to take you a long time because you will also now be putting in whether or not you want substitutions of any kind and remember, unfortunately, you have to do that one item at a time! Slightly painful, but I can live with it.

You now have a permanent shopping list. When you are ready to do your next grocery shop, all you have to do is log on and shop only for those items that are not on your permanent list, go to the tag marked ‘my list’, choose ‘select all’ and scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the ‘add to trolley’ button and it will add your normal list to your new grocery order.

Finally, it is time to check out and book your delivery slot. Delivery slots start from 10 am, with hourly times.  The R50 delivery slots (11 – 12 and 3 – 4) are usually booked quickly, so if you want that slot you will need to plan at least 4 days in advance. The other options are R75 (more of these are available and R90 (3 time slots 10-11, 5-6 & 6-7). They have a late delivery slot, 7- 8 pm, so if you work full day, it is not a problem. No deliveries on a Sunday or Public Holiday.

You get your smart shopper points and, if like us, you use a Discovery card (we have the debit card) you get those points too.

These are the items I do not order online:   Yoghurt, as the few times I have, the containers have arrived broken.  I do not order fruit or vegetables as I buy this weekly (also online delivery from www.farmfreshonline.co.za).   I don’t buy milk as I need 6 x 2 litres a week and I don’t have freezer space for a months’ worth of milk.  I also buy the PnP bread weekly but only from the kosher department. I also buy meat online in bulk, except for things like chops or steaks.

I have not used Woolworths online yet but I have browsed and it looks amazing!  Their delivery cost appears to be the same as PnP. They also have specials only available to online shoppers.

We have bought clothes from MRP online (Mr Price) and obviously Takealot.com.

This article is not paid for by PicknPay, it is my personal experience.