Early in the pandemic, I tried to arrange curbside pickup (preferred) and/or delivery from Meijer and other “big” stores. I prefer curbside because it GETS ME OUT DRIVING! As a lot of my six readers well know, back in those days it was hard if not impossible to get a pickup slot. Two weeks out? Nope. As I have said before, I do NOT blame Meijer for this. I’m sure those stores were SLAMMED by people suddenly clamoring for that service and were scrambling to keep up.

I gave up on that and figured other ways to get grocks, including Rodent Delivery who ALWAYS come through when I need them, and various small specialty businesses that I shop at anyway and pivoted to offer curbside service. A couple weeks ago Meijer sent me a cheerful email promising “We’ll deliver your booze” with pictures of Captain Morgan’s rum (which we don’t drink but buy for FlaMan) and bota boxes and Two Hearted beer and whatever. That piqued my interest and I checked out whether there were any available pickup times in the near future. Yes. But we didn’t need anything so I didn’t try it out.

I brought a LOT of grocks up here but we’ve been here for a week and needed some things so I ordered curbside from Meijer and picked it up today. How was it?

Overall good but not perfect.

The ordering interface is okay but the email communications were confusing. The instructions directed me to park in a curbside spot and GO INSIDE to pay and get my grocks. Uh, I am ordering curbside because I do not want to GO INSIDE! I sucked it up and called customer service and my labyrinthine trip through all of that would take its own post (or three) so we won’t go there and you’re welcome!

My shopper was wonderful. She called to ask about a substitute for one item and that was fine. I thought I had ordered two ears of sweet corn but got home with one. I suspect I neglected to click the plus button. It’s okay. We really only needed one ear anyway.

I could pay outside but that was a MESS but it was (arguably) my fault. For whatever reason, I often have trouble using my debit card at Meijer and it gets declined over and over before it finally works. I’m not gonna tell you how much money is in the account it’s attached to but it is much much more than any grocery tab I’ve run up any time in my entire life. Aaaaand I had just successfully used it at the gas pumps (first time I have EVER put gas in Mooon Yooonit, parked as far from anyone else as possible, masked, and hand-sanitized afterwards). But my card does have a reputation and next time I do Meijer curbside, I will give them a credit card that I know works. That was wasted time and stress for a Meijer employee and me.

I did try to order a bottle of bourbon and I got home without that (and didn’t pay for it either). I suspect that was why the email I got told me to come inside to get my pickup. That was fine but I was a bit annoyed that they didn’t say upfront something like “we can’t deliver this to your vee-hickle” or tell me that they had removed it from my order.

So the mask-to-mask HUMAN interactions were wonderful. The web ordering process was okay. The email messages (some of them) were not accurate and the phone system was a mess. They need to hire a few business systems analysts (like meeeee) who do user experience design for a living. But I WILL DEFINITELY use Meijer again.

Oh masks? Most people I saw going in or out were wearing them even though the yooperland is still not a hot spot. But not everyone. And soooo many vee-hickles in the parking lot and people walking in and out. Sigh. I felt a little weird being in a curbside spot with my mask on. Like all these other people are going in to shop like I did last summer. But the only interaction I had with another customer was one when I got out of my vee-hickle momentarily and a (masked) customer said she loved my skirt. Thank you, I said, and “I hope I don’t trip on it.”

Hotter than Hades here at the moominbeach today. I facetimed with MMCB₁ this morning and she asked, “Do you have air-conditioning?” Hahahahahahahaha. Actually the answer to that is that we are adjacent to the biggest air conditioner in the world. That would be Gitchee Gumee and I did swim this afternoon.

P.S. Plum Market has been my BEST “big store” pickup experience. I’m not saying that because I am related to an employee. She has nothing to do with curbside pickup. They just do a good job. I mentioned one of my shoppers to Mouse and she agreed about what a wonderful person she was.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2020 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.