If you have a computer, an Internet connection and some extra bucks, shopping for groceries may no longer have to include the headache of heavy bags, long lines and trying to make time for it in your day.
Since the summer, Nichols’ Market in Voorheesville has been offering online ordering for most of its products. Orders can either be picked up or, for a few more dollars, an employee will deliver them.
According to general manager Jaret Nichols, people have been asking him for years to start an online shopping service for the grocery store.
Jordan True, the store’s online shopping coordinator, said after an order is placed on the store’s Web site — www.nicholsmarket.com — he pulls the items off the shelves and fills the order.
I shop it for them, basically, said True.
True said he typically fills four to five orders a week, and the pick-up and delivery services are split about evenly.
`It’s getting more popular,` said True. `I get a lot of older people who can’t go out that much and moms with kids who don’t want to go to the grocery store with their kids. It’s very beneficial for them.`
This is the first winter the delivery/pickup service will be offered, and True said he expects a spike once the snow begins to fall.
Nichols also said he wants to see the service expand.
`It’s something that’s got to grow,` he said. `We’re slowly rolling it out and perfecting it still.`
Nichols said he knows of cases where some grocery businesses that offer online shopping have seen more than one-third of their sales come from the Internet customers.
Locally, Price Chopper tried a similar service in the past, but Mona Golub, spokeswoman for grocery chain, said it ended once it began to lose money.
`The cost of taking the orders, filling the orders and delivering the orders, was cost-prohibitive,` said Golub.
In the Capital District, Golub said, the demand was not there to keep the service available.
Additionally the customers of the Price Chopper service were not offered the store’s sales prices, and Golub said many customers were not comfortable with being delivered perishable products, though they were guaranteed.
Currently, Price Chopper offers the service only for pharmaceuticals.
`It’s not for everybody. They were losing money on it. In order to make it successful, you have to cover the costs,` said Nichols, citing the cost of travel and an employee’s time spent doing the shopping as expenditures involved in offering such a service.
On a recent day, some shoppers at Nichols’ said the service, although convenient, wouldn’t be of much use to them.
`I shop at more than one place and live down the street, so I don’t find it difficult,` said Kathy Fiero of Voorheesville.
Guilderland resident Marianne Hurley said, `I wouldn’t because I have the time to shop. I enjoy the shopping.`
One shopper, who asked not to be named, said that the added money would be a deterrent, but she could see situations where she might use the service.
`I can’t say absolutely not,` she said.
The pickup service is offered for free to first-time users, and after that it costs $9 each time. Delivery service is offered for $15.
`If you don’t like going to a grocery store, you can spend five minutes online or, what, like an hour in the grocery store,` said True. `It’s very convenient.“