Several months ago, I stumbled upon an ad online about Walmart’s new grocery pick up service. In short, you order your groceries online and schedule a time to pick them up. The store gives you a courtesy call when your order is ready, and you call them back when you’re about 10-15 minutes away from the store so they can pull your order and have it ready when you arrive. Once you get to the store, you park in a designated parking spot and call the number on the sign to let them know you’ve arrived. The associates then come out and load the groceries in your car, you sign the receipt, and you’re done. Oh, and all of this is FREE. They won’t even accept a tip.

It sounded too good to be true. As a mom with a toddler, the idea of not having to physically go to the grocery store had tremendous appeal to me. I found that the website is very well organized and easy to use. I placed my first order with no problems and received confirmation that it was received. The next morning, I loaded Turner in the car to go pick up our order. Unfortunately, there was a small hiccup when I arrived. The system was down, the manager was out of town, and the employees were frantically trying to figure out what to do. To give them some time to figure it out, I agreed to come back in a few minutes. Turner and I went to a nearby drive through and grabbed some breakfast, and by the time we placed our order, Walmart had called to say they had my order ready.

The process was smooth after that and the staff was friendly. They even gave me a “Welcome” bag full of various products (bottled water, organic Campbell’s soup, ziplock bags, granola bars, etc…) I filled out the survey online and gave a summary of my experience. I was contacted by phone by 3 different employees to apologize for the inconvenience of their system being down and was offered a $20 credit to my account.

I’ve been using the service regularly since then, and I haven’t had any other issues. It seems like they have worked out all of the bugs and the system works very well now. I love that I can shop when I want (typically after Turner is in bed) and see my total before I check out. This definitely helps me to stay within my planned budget. It basically eliminates impulse shopping for me, and it saves the time and general hassle of taking a toddler to the grocery store. It’s a definite win. The only drawbacks are that the stores in my area that offer the service are not particularly close (about 9 miles away), but Walmart will be offering it in more locations soon. Also, now that it has become more popular, the appointment slots fill up fairly quickly, so if you need to schedule a day or two in advance in order to get the time slot you want. Finally, this service is currently not compatible with Ibotta due to the format of the receipt.

Overall, I’m very impressed and will definitely continue to use this service. If you’re interested in giving it a try, use my referral link and receive $10! Sign up here!