Let me begin with the truth: I once believed buying groceries online was the pinnacle of human achievement. Imagine skipping the long lines, avoiding the person blocking the entire cereal aisle while comparing fibre content, and never again enduring the slow-motion horror of someone paying with coins. The dream was alive. All I had to do was click, scroll, and await my bag of bounty.
Ah, but the grocery gods had other plans.
At first, the process felt magical. I sat in my pyjamas, sipping coffee, casually adding muesli and yogurt to my digital cart as if I were the sort of person who regularly ate muesli and yogurt. The app recommended things I never knew I needed, truffle-infused sea salt, dragon fruit, biodegradable dish soap. Everything was sleek, efficient, and delightfully modern.
Then came the delivery.
The groceries arrived in large brown paper bags that whispered promises of freshness and ethical sourcing. But as I pulled items out, my kitchen quickly transformed into a scene from a culinary crime drama. The bananas were already halfway to banana bread. The milk had an expiry date that belonged in a museum. One of the tomatoes had imploded in its packaging, leaking a red trail across the bread, which now resembled a tragic sandwich murder victim.
I stared at the wreckage. Somewhere, a grocery picker had looked at these items and thought, “Yes, this is exactly what they meant when they ordered fresh produce.”
Naturally, I contacted customer service. I explained the situation calmly, which is to say I wrote an email that began with “Hello” and ended with “Sincerely,” but was emotionally equivalent to shaking my fist at the sky and yelling, “WHY?”
Their response was polite and apologetic. I was offered a refund for the expired items and a free delivery for my next order. This was appreciated, but it did little to undo the emotional damage caused by receiving a cucumber that looked like it had seen things. Dark, terrifying things.
One of the great risks of online grocery shopping is the human factor. Somewhere out there is a well-meaning, possibly under-caffeinated employee responsible for choosing my avocados. That person might be having a good day. Or they might have recently been dumped and decided I deserve the hardest avocado known to man.
I once ordered a bag of rice and received bird food. I do not own a bird.
There is a certain lottery aspect to the process. I click, I pay, and then I wait to see if I will receive everything I asked for, something I vaguely remember asking for, or a rogue bottle of fish sauce that will haunt my pantry for years.
Despite the mishaps, I keep going back. There is something comforting about the convenience, even with the occasional tragic squashed bread. When the stars align, and everything arrives in good shape, it feels like winning a small domestic jackpot. No parking battles, no impulse-buying a family-size tub of curried fish, no dragging three bags of groceries up the stairs like a pack mule.
I have learned a few tricks: never order produce unless I am feeling brave, avoid scheduling deliveries late in the day (tired pickers are not my friends), and always check the expiration dates immediately, lest I end up sipping soup that expired during Covid.
Buying groceries online is like a long-term relationship. It has its ups and downs. There are moments of bliss when the eggs are uncracked and the parsley smells like summer, and there are days when I question all my life choices while scraping yogurt off a tin of jam.
But in the end, I keep showing up, clicking “add to cart,” and hoping for the best. Because despite it all, there is something undeniably satisfying about avoiding the supermarket and still ending up with dinner on the table, even if that dinner occasionally involves toast and an apology.
* Sheryl Goldstuck is general manager of World Wide Worx and editor of GadgetWheels. Follow her on Bluesky on @crazycatbuzz.bsky.social.