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I Order My Groceries From FreshDirect, The Online Grocery Store That Makes Food Shopping Incredibly Easy — Here's What It's Like
© FreshDirect © FreshDirect To avoid carrying 40 pounds of food home from the grocery store and irritating my back, I started using FreshDirect, an online grocery store that delivers food right to my door. Here's everything you need to know about how FreshDirect works, what it costs, and how I deal with not being able to touch or see my food before buying it. Due to the novel coronavirus, many online grocery delivery services are experiencing delays fulfilling and shipping orders, as well as low inventory for some products. Be sure to keep these factors in mind if you choose to shop at FreshDirect right now. As of March 12, FreshDirect's delivery personnel will bring your order up to your door, but cannot enter your home due to concerns over the novel coronavirus. As an additional health precaution, FreshDirect will not be collecting the bags in which groceries are delivered at this time. Customers are encouraged to keep and reuse them. See more: The best grocery delivery in NYC I don't hate grocery shopping. Quite the opposite actually - I love strolling through the aisles, trying to follow my meticulously curated grocery list while simultaneously allowing myself to get distracted and inspired by everything that's not on it. Sadly, once I moved to an overpopulated city like New York, this relaxed Sunday afternoon ideal became a perfect pipe dream. Grocery shopping in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is terrible. I can't get through the produce section without my cart getting hit or my vegetables being blocked by boxes to be unloaded, and after having to weave my way through a hundred people shoved into the narrow aisles of a small store, I have to carry home 40 pounds of food. It's not ideal - especially for someone who has back problems and who grocery shops for a two-person household. I use FreshDirect, an online grocery delivery service that has helped me save both money and time © FreshDirect Here's how it works FreshDirect works exactly like any other shopping site. You search the items you want and add them to your cart in the offered quantities. Once you've finished shopping, you'll select a delivery time with a two-hour window and pre-pay for your items. You can schedule your deliveries for the next day or up to a week in advance, but there are no day-of options. Your boxes will arrive in a refrigerated truck, and the delivery person will even bring them inside to your kitchen counter. (Note: As of 3/12/20, FreshDirect has suspended this service due to concerns over the novel coronavirus. Delivery personnel will now bring your order up to your door, but cannot enter your home. We are currently monitoring the company's delivery policies, and will update this article accordingly.) When shopping on the site, you can look for inspiration by browsing sections like "Fresh Deals" and "Top-Rated Produce" or check out the products with available coupons. You can also search for local ingredients, shop specifically for organic items, or order basic home necessities like toilet paper and Lysol wipes. And just like a regular grocery store, they have both name brand and generic brand food items, specialty groceries, ready-made items, and party platters (plus wine, beer, and liquor in certain areas). Their array is as vast as any big box store would be - it's just much easier and faster to navigate. One feature that I love the idea of but haven't yet used is the "Farm Share" box, which is basically like a box full of assorted produce from a local farm nearby. In my area of Brooklyn, the option that comes up is a $40 box with a dozen eggs, one block of cheese, and four to five varieties of vegetables from the current harvest. © FreshDirect Delivery fees differ, but within the five boroughs of New York City, the fee is $5.99 The company only operates in specific areas of New York, DC, New Jersey, Delaware, and Philadelphia, and has different delivery fees for each area (see all cities and fees here). If you live in Manhattan or any of the boroughs, the delivery fee is $5.99 per order, plus an optional tip for your driver. If you love the service and use it frequently, you might want to invest in the DeliveryPass option, which is $79 for six months or $129 for a year, and affords you free delivery, exclusive special offers, reserved time slots, and a bonus $5 discount on orders delivered between Tuesday and Friday. If you were to order from FreshDirect weekly, it would cost you about $311 per year in delivery fees, so the membership is extremely worth it. You'll also always find a discount for signing up as a new customer. FreshDirect helps me plan out my meals for the week, and I can shop without leaving my couch Ordering groceries online has its advantages. It helps me stick to a list so I don't overbuy or get distracted by all the new ingredients I see, and it lets me search deals all in one place instead of running around the store, so I can build my weekly meal plan based on what's on sale. And possibly the most important thing to note is that I don't have to get dressed to go shopping. I can do it all from the comfort of my couch on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee in my hand and my cat on my lap. But it does prevent you from seeing what's actually fresh in stores and it's risky to get fragile items like eggs © FreshDirect However, it also has its limitations. You can't touch or smell the produce for ripeness, and you can't just get "whatever looks best," as my mom would say. It can also be risky to get fragile items like eggs (something I know from experience). For things like that, I'll buy in person when I have time during the week, and I build my shopping list around things I know are in season to avoid unripe or tasteless produce. FreshDirect's produce is, on average, excellent - and if you ask me, the annoyance of getting the occasional batch of unripe bananas in my order doesn't hold a candle to the nightmare that is going to the store and carrying groceries home on a Sunday in the city. Plus, I know that if anything's wrong with my order, or if I'm not happy with something, I can just message FreshDirect's customer service. They're expedient and efficient, and in most cases, a complaint will result in at least a refund, if not a credit, to your account for whatever inconvenience was caused. So whether you also hate carrying groceries home, or you just have a hectic schedule that makes grocery shopping a major chore, it's worth giving FreshDirect a shot.
Ocado’s Share Price May Reach 100 Pounds By 2030, Bernstein Says
(Bloomberg) -- CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC. British online grocer Ocado Group Plc, which has been shifting its focus to providing supermarket chains worldwide with technology solutions, could see its stock price appreciate tenfold by 2030, according to Bernstein analysts. As consumers increasingly turn to online shopping for their groceries, Bernstein sees the potential for Ocado’s share price to be valued at between 40 pounds and 100 pounds on the assumption that more warehouses will be built globally to meet demand. The stock was trading at 1,011 pence as of 10:24 a.M. In London. Ocado currently has deals to supply 58 warehouses, compared with the 209 that would be needed in 10 years’ time if consumers in the developed world do 10% of their shopping online and Ocado’s retail partners have a 30% share of their domestic markets by then, Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne wrote in a note Thursday. There’s potential for even bigger growth, he said. “Grocery e-commerce penetration will be heavily linked to how many shopping missions can end up being done online,” Monteyne wrote. “Reaching 10% e-commerce penetration by 2030, as in our base case, has further upside. Maybe that will take another decade, but 10% is not necessarily the end stage of grocery e-commerce.” © Bloomberg Ocado shares have more than quadrupled on international licensing deals Ocado shares have more than quadrupled since the company announced a technology licensing deal with France’s Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA in 2017, giving it a market value of about 7 billion pounds ($8.9 billion). Since then, the U.K. Grocer has signed similar agreements with Canada’s Sobeys Inc., Sweden’s ICA Gruppen AB, Kroger Co. In the U.S. And Coles Group Ltd. In Australia. To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Pham in London at lpham14@bloomberg.Net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Beth Mellor at bmellor@bloomberg.Net, Paul Jarvis For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.Com ©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
How To Make Your Online Shopping Greener
Online shopping has grown hugely in popularity: the choice, the convenience, the exclusive discounts, all from the comfort of your own home. It’s a queue-free, quick-fix for everything from a wedding outfit to a last-minute Friday night dress. At the click of a button you can order four dresses in various sizes, knowing that returning is as easy as sticking them back in the post. Plastic pollution: plastics in the supermarket Sound familiar? You're not alone. 51% of shoppers consciously overbuy online, knowing they'll return unwanted items. Indeed, the 'order several of the same piece of clothing in different sizes/colours' shopping trend is so entrenched in modern consumer behaviour, it’s even acquired a name for itself: Bracketing. As a consumer, this practice seems harmless enough. But is it? Did you know retailers send over 5 billion pounds of waste from returns to landfill each year in the US alone? And that's not counting the returns that are incinerated. The carbon footprint of clothes Before they even arrive on your doorstep, clothes, shoes and accessories undergo many environmentally harmful procedures. That includes fabric being made out of fossil fuels, clothes dyed with toxic chemicals and created in factories that pump large amounts of noxious pollutants into the air by process. R Franca / EyeEmGetty Images The problem with shopping online The carbon footprint of these items then mushrooms by being shipped across the country multiple times. Passed between freight vehicles and last-mile delivery vans, these goods reach your doorstep bundled in single-use plastic packaging and excessive amounts of cardboard. The impact of returns If you decide to return them, your purchases enter the reverse supply chain. They rewind their way back through a network of middlemen and resellers to often ultimately end up in landfill. Their transportation overall goes on to contribute a staggering 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, detrimental to the environment and our health. Why returns end up in landfill Why do so many returns end up in landfill rather than be resold? Simple. Returns put a lot of pressure on retailers: they demand extra warehouse space and employees to sort them, as well as often selling for marked down prices. How to reduce plastic from your household shopping All of this adds an expensive layer to the bottom lines, with returns costing UK retailers a whopping £60bn per year. A third of which is generated by online shopping alone. Subsequently, less than half of returns go back on sale, as it's cheaper and less hassle for retailers to send them to an incinerator or landfill. Shockingly, even selling them at a discount to secondary vendors or liquidation services is more expensive. What can consumers do to make a difference? Developing four times quicker than its bricks-and-mortar counterpart, online shopping isn't going anywhere soon. Particularly in the UK, where we buy more clothes per person than any other country across Europe! Rather than stopping from shopping online entirely, here's 10 ways to make more environmentally conscious decisions. 1 Consolidate your orders and bundle shipments Reduce packaging waste and scattershot drop-offs with online retailers such as Amazon, who offer incentives to choose a delivery day or bundle items into fewer packages. Rather than missing your delivery slot and doubling emissions by rerouting the courier, select a time you're guaranteed to be in and have all parcels arrive at once in as little packaging as possible. Beeswax wraps - do they work? 2 Purchase from retailers committed to lessening their environmental impact Etsy, for example, has announced zero emissions shipping. This is done by the company purchasing carbon offsets in wind power generation, forest protection and creating auto components that pollute less. Elsewhere, ASOS bars serial returners from its website, deactivating accounts when it suspects someone is returning huge "loads". Zalando uses the reusable packaging service RePack, IKEA will transform its delivery services to 100% electric or other zero-emission options by 2025 and this year Tesco will trial the zero-waste shopping service, Loop, delivering products in refillable and reusable containers. 3 Select a carbon-neutral shipping option When possible, select carbon neutral shipping at checkout with Cloverly, and pay a little extra to offset your carbon footprint. This is currently offered by a few brands such Ben Sherman, Kitx, L/L Supply, Good Krama, Modern Citizen, Carolina K, Swoveralls, Wuxly Movement and Kotn. You can also offset the carbon emissions of your return, using UPS' carbon neutral shipping option. 9 ways to switch to plastic-free cleaning 4 Rethink the last (and first) mile Pick up your parcel from a store, locker or petrol station using ‘click & collect’ and help cut last-mile emissions. The same goes for returns – get in your steps by walking to the local post office or DPD, Doddle, Hermes, CollectPlus and UPS drop-off points. With talk of electric trucks, bikes, drones and even bots taking over our last-mile delivery service, this may not be a sacrifice for much long. 5 Use packageless returns drop-off programs Many retailers including New Look, Zara and Marks & Spencer, offer box-free and label-less returns and exchanges in-store. You only have to present the receipt along with the items you wish to return. This reduces cardboard, plastic, and fuel – especially if you walk or get public transport there. Packageless return drop-off programmes, such as Happy Returns, are gathering steam in the U.S. Their 700 return bars use reusable packaging and bulk shipping to help cut the cardboard waste responsible for the deforestation of over 1 billion trees. These return bars have yet to reach the UK, but the company works internationally with Cariuma, Cuts Clothing, Rothy's, and Viscata to reduce the environmental and financial cost of returns by 20%. Energy saving tips for the home 6 Shop either online or in-store If it stops people from driving to the shops, online shopping has the potential to be greener than in-store. In an ideal world, it means just one van delivering from a warehouse straight to the consumer, compared to a flood of individual cars driving to the shops. In reality, most of us do both so pick your option... 7 Be patient Choose slower shipping. According to the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, opting for standard delivery rather than next-day could help decrease carbon dioxide emissions by about 30%. And you'll only appreciate your purchase more having had to longingly wait for its arrival. Recycle electrical appliances 8 Buy second hand and upcycled items, and avoid impulsive buys Purchasing used, open-box, refurbished, upcycled and vintage items is a great way to shop more sustainably. It can also be more cost-effective! ASOS Marketplace is a great platform for scouring vintage collections and smaller boutiques rather than mass manufacturers. If you do choose to shop online, scrutinise your basket and think carefully about every purchase to avoid unnecessary returns – especially when buying new. 9 Speak up, brand loyalty is out We consumers have the power to make change. If you're disgruntled by the excessive packaging of your online order, tell the retailer. According to recent research by Mondi, 58% of British consumers admit they would switch to a different brand because it uses less packaging. It was customer feedback that initiated Amazon's Frustration Free Packaging, which is made of 100% recyclable materials or ships products in their original wrapping to eliminate the need for an additional box. 10 Calculate your personal shopping footprint Many of us worry about the environmental damage done by our shopping habits. And with all the conflicting messages, advice and scaremongering, it's hard not to become overwhelmed. Luckily, actress Emma Watson has launched a calculator to help assess just how bad our wardrobes are for the planet. Calculate your fashion footprint. Martin BarraudGetty Images Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. SIGN UP
