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Forget “Click and collect”, grocery delivery apps can save time and money! But which one is the best? 

As horrible as the Covid-19 Pandemic was and still is, there are a couple of things that might just have changed for the better. Here are our favourites: 

• Hand sanitizer being freely available. 
• Remote working. 

• The normalization of parenthood. It just took that one colleague being interrupted by their child during a Zoom or Teams meeting, for everyone to chuckle and think – me too. And maybe have a bit more understanding next time life gets in the way. 

And possibly the thing we like most: 

Grocery Delivery Apps! 

We locked Uber Eats and Mister D on our home screens years ago, so it didn’t take long for retailers to realise that there was a need for online shopping and near real-time delivery of fresh groceries. 

Choose your player: Woolies Dash, CheckersSixty60, and Pick’nPay ASAP are all competitors in this game. (Ag shame, Spar. We’ll give you a minute, okay?) 

HOMEMAKERS is Your Personal Grocery App Shopper 

We have found a couple of things that they have in common and we’ve also come to some valuable conclusions. 

These apps all run on the same basic principle.  

You have access to all the products in whatever store’s app you are using. You get to fill your virtual shopping cart with groceries by browsing through the different “isles”.  

This means Butchery, Bakery, Dairy and Eggs, Fruit and Veg are all in their own category, as they are in the store.  

Home Care, Personal and dry goods are also split up and rather straightforward to search through.  

You place your order, and the in-store shopper starts doing your “shopping”. Your products are scanned and handed to a driver. And if everything works like these apps ALL promise it will, you have the right quality and quantity of products delivered to your door on or about the time you selected. Straightforward enough, right? 

Well, Yes. and No.  

The thing people seem to be forgetting is that these apps are tech programs, that have to interface with very real and very fallible humans.  

The app might be shiny and promise great things, but the shopper is human. As is the driver. And the store is run by humans. And the shelves are stocked by humans. It’s still a very hands-on, human-driven solution even though it’s packaged in a high-tech way.

Grocery Delivery App Solutions, With Some Fuss. 

What became apparent to us after reading through hundreds of reviews for each app was that yes, there are bugs and glitches. Fortunately, these get fixed with updates and patches pretty easily.  

However, the big issue that seems to pop up again and again, comes with the human touch as mentioned above. 

Read this carefully: Your specific experience of whichever app you choose, will only EVER be as good as the in-store experience of the store you order from.  

It’s as simple as that.  

It’s important to remember that the groceries you order are not zapped into existence by a magical app-driven laser. They come from the shelves of your local grocery store. Furthermore, they are shopped and packed by that store.  

The app doesn’t make the milk sour or cause the bananas to be out of stock. And neither does the driver. It’s the quality control of the shop that creates the issues you have with your delivered products. 

And The Winner is: Uhhhh… 

The long and the short of it is – if you’re happy with the shop down the road, it should be safe to pay that little bit extra for them to deliver your daily bread and milk.  

If you are not happy, rather go in person and make sure you get what you pay for. 

HOMEMAKERS would love to settle the debate.

Make your voice heard by voting for your favourite Grocery Shopping App:

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