You all have seen the photos, or experienced this yourself:
I am a person who doesn’t shop in person. I either order from a service like Amazon or Walmart, and I have my groceries delivered to my porch by a delivery service. I use either Shipt (most often) or Instacart.
I order groceries once or twice a week, usually via Shipt, which are obtained from a Meijer store.
This morning I placed an order at about 10:00 am. Normally I can select delivery within 2 hours of the order time. Not today. At first, no option for delivery time was even offered. It took several tries to get a time slot – between 8 and 9 pm tomorrow night!
How things have changed! Only five days ago my grocery order was filled without problem or delay, even including a 12-pack of toilet paper.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the items I ordered will be in stock. That is true even in a normal week, but practically guaranteed this week. I anticipate that I won’t be able to get eggs, and possibly some other items. I don’t need paper products, and I didn’t order milk or bread.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
All my orders from Amazon have been processed smoothly except one, which I placed a week ago, and was cancelled this morning. I ordered isopropyl alcohol from Amazon, and it was delivered today. I even ordered toilet paper, and it was delivered Thursday.
What experiences have you had either with on-line orders or in-person shopping?
Stella's Place 
I ordered from Walmart a week ago and got everything I wanted, including tp. I don’t know what would happen if I ordered today. I was going to place an order yesterday, but I waited too late. It was an order just for things I might need when I get back from the beach. Guess I might end up going on a diet then.
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I went shopping yesterday before the President’s speech. I needed a few things and thought that shopping was bound to get much worse after his speech.
Since I had to go, I added a few basics like bread and milk to hold me over awhile. I should not have to go back to the store for weeks, which was my intent. I did not buy a ridiculous amount of anything because I keep enough things on hand to get us by through a few weeks, without being able to stockpile in a closet or extra room.
The Walmart was almost completely sold out of paper product, bread, eggs, and things like peanut butter and most jelly. Most aisles were at least half empty. Milk was no problem, and they had a decent supply of some meat, but hamburger was low. I needed detergent, and selection on that was low too.
I would like to be able to have some fruits and vegetables but I probably will not go back for it, not until the crazies calm down. I just don’t want to deal with that again, so I am glad I went and got it done.
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I watched a YouTube video interview of a logistics specialist who said that his contacts in chain store management plan to re-route shipments from rural areas to cities. So the rural people go without so lazy, selfish people can stockpile NOW that the crisis is here? How about stores limiting quantities? People trying to do normal shopping are now having to fight being trampled by thundering hordes of out-of-school teenagers, thanks. Who exactly are you protecting by closing schools? Certainly not the seniors who are the ones really at risk for severe cases, but who might need to get to the store.
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Thiughtful observation. We, however, keep well stocked year round. Mostly b/c we live 30 minutes from the grocery store, altho there are Dollar General type stores closer. Interestingly, they seem to still have plenty of necessities, for reasonable prices. And our neighbors can supply eggs, chickens, & beef, the lake in the back yard has fish, ducks and turtles, and possums, raccoons, wild pigs and deer wander by.
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Where you live is what my brother calls “the prickers”. lol đŸ˜¸ I’m what you call a “townie”.
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Been a townie all my life, until we retired to the country. Czar has off-grid skills, tho. And I’ve read books (!) about how people lived before grocery stores and home delivery of everything you could imagine, from tiny seeds to tractors….
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Lots of welfare folks here, and low income retired. Many don’t know how to order online or have a credit card. The instacart service charges a monthly fee, and doesn’t (yet?) accept EBT. We don’t have a Super Walmart, so they don’t deliver. Wegmans does deliver, but they are expensive (compared to Aldi). The people I saw wiping out the aisles at Aldi could certainly afford Wegmans. Just sayin’.
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It may be a difference in demand, rather than rural/urban, that determines the rerouting of shipments to urban stores. As czarina points out, rural people are more likely to have a deeper pantry, and local sources for necessities, like eggs, milk, chickens etc.
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Limiting quantities is a better approach. There are a lot of poor people in rural communities who do not have deep pantries.
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The trouble with limiting quantities is some people will get unruly, perhaps even uncivilized/violent when denied more, and take their ire out on the employees. In the city, mosly only the thugs have guns, and they’ll take what they want. Out in the country more law abiding people carry weapons and thugs are less likely to even try such behavior.
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I know you’re right, it’s difficult. Some stores have security, others will have to hire a service. If that’s how it’s going to be. In a Buffalo, NY, grocery store a black man walked over to an Asian woman and sprayed her down with Lysol! He was gone, running through the parking lot, before police could even be called. Poor woman! So, yes, security might be a good idea. I don’t want this to be “the new normal”. Remember how long it took to get over 9/11? And we’re still dealing with the abusive controls of the Patriot Act (FISA). Are we going to get more of the same now? Martial law type controls?
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I don’t disagree about limiting quantities; I think that’s a great idea.
Young people are not likely to get a serious case of the disease, but the closer they are together heightens the likelihood that they will share it with their fellow students who will, in turn, share it with their parents, grandparents and neighbors. Closing schools during flu epidemics (or in the past, measles etc) is not a new tactic to prevent spread.
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I get that, Stella, but I just don’t see them sitting at home.
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Mayor of NO said today the time off from work and school means to stay home, not to go out and mingle with people at tourist attractions and vacation spots. But, hey they flocked to St. Patrick’s parties in the streets last night, till the cops broke up them up….
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Yesterday’s regular Aldi shopping included eight cans of tomatoes, six cans green beans (for one green bean casserole for when gang comes over), and six cans of corn because we like corn three times a week (only veggie we all like). When I got to counter, was told only four cans per type per customer.
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Who knew there’d be a run on veggies!
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Good. When I went last Thursday ALL the cans of juice-pack fruit had been stripped. So selfish.
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Nope, the urbanish Walmart in our (pop ~10,400) was out of just about all paper products today. Clerk I talked to said they had a truck come in early today and by noon everything was gone.
There’s no rhyme or reason, there’s plenty of soda and juice but the water shelves, about 40 ;linear feet, are all empty, they’re stacking pallets of water in the aisle. Plenty of bread but dry soups are gone while canned soup right next to it’s A-OK. It’s panic buying but the people are using hurricane shopping mode. There are selective ‘outs’ on the shelves that make no survival sense.
GGS and I went to the 16-screen theater in Slidell (pop ! 29,000) and when we drove into the lot at ten minutes to movie time there were only two cars in the lot. I stopped up front and had him go upto the booths to see if they were open – they were so we went in. There were fewer than 15 people in the theater but when the show was over and we left there were about 30 cars in the lot. A lot of those undoubtedly belonged to a private kid’s birthday party being held in a special room, there were about 30 parents a 5-6 year olds at the party. They weren’t afraid to gather with their kids.
This is media-driven panic, and the businesses are forced to dance to their tune.
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My friend’s niece called her yesterday, and today her brother called her warning that we are all going to be quarantined in our houses and had better have enough water and food to last a month. SMH I couldn’t find out where that came from but I wonder if that source is part of what is causing this run on food and water and a lot of the hysteria. By the way, it is beautiful at the beach and a lot of people don’t care about this coronavirus stuff obviously.
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Besides, if you are going to be quarantined, what better place than the beach?!
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Yeah, it’s really rough here, what with the waves coming in and the 70* air, but we’ll make it. Oh, yeah, we ate lunch at the Cracker Barrel and ordered a pizza for dinner. We like living dangerously.
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I guess my family is already getting bored or have given up, not one phone call today asking me if I was doing something that might get me killed by the virus. lol
I didn’t go anywhere today though, it was raining and cold all day. The farthest I got from the house was to the barn.
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We still have a lot of long-term-storage hurricane food and a whole shelf (and two boxes in the closet) of booze so wee can stay fed and well sanitized.
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I was just on the King Arthur Flour site. They are completely out of 5# bread flour AND 5# all-purpose flour!
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They still have whole wheat. I ordered some sprouted wheat flour, which I have been meaning to try.
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Down here everyone uses self rising. Walmart was out of all but their brand of it. I always keep whitelmwhole wheat and all purpose, and I also having soda and baking powder, so I will be fine.
I’ve barely done any bread baking since we moved here. Maybe I need to practice those skills.
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I always have AP flour and bread flour. I also have cake flour. Substitute for self-rising: 1 AP flour, 1-1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt. For biscuits, cake flour would be even better. I listed 5# of bread flour in my grocery order today; we’ll see if they have it.
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In the last three weeks I received all my Walmart.com orders for canned soups, ground beef from Keystone (fully cooked, no preservatives), Evian water, vitamins, toilet paper, Kleenex, snacks and breakfast foods in a timely manner, though not in the 2-day delivery as advertised. So far I’ve received everything ordered. Early morning, 3/13, I placed another order on the 2-day system. We’ll see how well they do on delivery time.
My neighbor orders items for me via Grocery/Walmart.com and she chooses 9:00 AM each Friday for her own order…had no problem with getting packaged broccoli, milk, a salad.
So far, so good!
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I don’t go to WalMart very often, so don’t know about our local WalMarts other than what I’ve seen on FB or been told by family members about their local WalMart. From what I’ve been told or have seen on FB they have no bottled water, fresh meat, lunch meat, toilet paper, paper towels, baby wipes or cleaning supplies.
A few days ago I was at the Dollar General, where I do most of my non-food shopping, they weren’t sold out of anything or short on anything. Not only that Scott toilet paper was on sale, which is when I buy the large 24 pack that is supposed to equal 48 rolls. It lasts us a long time.
This afternoon my husband ran to the local grocery store to get some carrots, something I was out of and like to add to my stew. He said food wise they weren’t low on anything, actually had more meat than normal, but were totally sold out of toilet paper, paper towels and cleaning supplies. He got curious and went to that Dollar General(different one than I went to) and said they were also out of toilet paper and almost out of cleaning supplies, but were fully stocked on paper towels.
My personal opinion is this will be short lived because we all know the short attention span of Americans and even if people are dying in the streets they’ll be moving on to something new in a few weeks.
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I agree, michellc. There is nothing that I need right now, and will happily wait until the stores are restocked. I have enough food and supplies to last me for a while.
I do feel sorry for somebody if they truly need toilet paper and can’t find any. There are substitutes, but most of them aren’t very convenient. Rags used and disposed of in a covered waste can comes to mind.
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I remember my grandparents had a Sears and Roebuck catalog in the outhouse. lol
I read my great niece on FB complaining that she was about out of baby wipes and that WalMart was sold out. About to go in a panic about how she was going to wipe her baby. I told her to use wash cloths. She told me she couldn’t afford to be throwing away wash cloths. I told her poop does wash out. It made her mad and she said I wouldn’t be saying that if I had a baby and I told her I raised three babies without baby wipes. She told me she hoped I ran out of toilet paper. lol
I honestly do not see a lot of older people around here in a panic, it’s mainly younger people who think everyone is either going to die from the coronavirus or lack of toilet paper.
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Gee, I actually didn’t die during the H1N1 mess.
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Most people don’t even know how many got sick with the swine flu or died from it because the media wasn’t spending 24 hours a day trying to get everyone to panic.
The only older people I know that are in a panic over it are 2 of my siblings and a few cousins, the same ones that were driving me nuts. They stay glued to the news and look up the new numbers almost on an hourly basis. Almost all of my younger family members except my kids seem to think the world is coming to an end as do the majority of my kids’ friends.
I’ve made a few angry because I told them I wasn’t scared of a virus and I wasn’t scared to die, that when my kids were young I would always pray to God to allow me to live long enough to raise my kids. He did that, so now every day is just a bonus.
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I could understand the toilet paper if it was dysentery, but not this. LOL
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I don’t understand the toilet paper, haven’t since I first started hearing about it.
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Apparently some people think they will be quarantined for a year.
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I think a lot of it is monkey see monkey do. People stocking up on toilet paper, I better stock up on toilet paper.
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Your niece has no imagination. What would she do if she was using cloth diapers?
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I doubt she even knows what they are. She’s 26 and acts like she’s 14. Two kids, the baby is less than 6 weeks old, both daddy’s are out of the picture and if it wasn’t for her mother and grandmother treating her like she’s 14 she wouldn’t even have the money to buy disposable diapers and baby wipes or have a roof over her head. She’s a self entitled little brat because they made her that way. I’m sure once they see what I told her or she tells them what I told her I will be getting a phone call about hurting her feelings and how people don’t use cloth diapers or wash cloths anymore.
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If this panic lasts very long, there will be a lot of people who wish they had cloth diapers. I remember those days, and I appreciate the convenience of disposables, but it’s always good to have a small supply of the cloth kind. I suppose one could make their own from old sheets and towels!
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“Necessity is the mother of invention”.
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There are videos out there that teach you how to cut a roll of paper towels in half and make wipes out of them. Of course, people might not have the products they need to do that either.
One of the problems as I see it is that people equate convenience with survival. We aren’t going to die, or even suffer. Being put out a little bit, having to work a little harder, that is not suffering.
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I used tea towels before. I remember when my daughter was a baby, I always rinsed her diapers out in the bathtub and then put them in a pail and every two days washed diapers. On one diaper washing day we didn’t have any water. We were on rural water at that time and they had a busted water line, so had the water shut down all day into the night.
I ran out of clean diapers, so I pulled out the tea towels and turned them into diapers.
My mom said when she had babies you didn’t buy diapers, she made hers out of flour sacks.
The problem today is young mothers never have to improvise. Luckily for her if it gets to the point where there are no disposable diapers she has my sister to show her, but she’ll be taught kicking and screaming. Her mother is as clueless as her though when it comes to anything other than disposable diapers and baby wipes.
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This whole thread makes me want to put my hands over my ears and eyes and scream! Do none of these people who believe they are inconvenienced have ANY imagination! Will they even listen when someone (who maybe has already lived through such inconveniences, like before they were invented) has a solution! Aus, I think Lucy and I will join you at the beach….
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Well, just come on. There is plenty of tp, water, and food,…………oh, and diapers in the stores here. Along with the sunshine and 80* weather.
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Take heart. All we hear from Fake News is panic, most of which is made up, deliberately causing the nonsense occurring..
Wicked Son and fam has been, and still is, down in Florida for Insalubrious GSon’s college spring BB training. They are enjoying their vaca and time in the sun, with nary a care in the world.
There is sanity out here in the real world. Take Lucy, go to the beach, find aus, eat out. Gulf shrimp is good this time of year, with hush puppies, of course.
(oh heck, you might even consider taking czar, if he is really good)
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Yep. Things look pretty much normal here at the beach. The restaurants look really busy. Publix was normal and the shelves filled. People were all up and down the beach having fun.
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We’re there with you in spirit. Have one of those umbrella drinks for me.
Would you like to hear about us waking up this morning to a fresh blanket of snow?
No? lolol
It is a grand life, being a senile decrepit arthritic irascible lame old lady. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
See ya on the beach.
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Another problem with young folk today, (I sound like an old fogey!), is that they don’t know how to cook anything! My Mom had me cooking full meals for my younger siblings at 8 years old!
If it’s not something they can just drive thru for, or microwave, they just can’t be bothered.
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Both of my grandsons are good cooks and bakers (aged 16 and 19). So is my son-in-law. No lack of cooks in my family! The older grandson is vegetarian. The younger one took a culinary arts class his freshman year, and is looking for a job as a cook.
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A very personal question – it is now 17:50 EST 15 Mar 2020, and I’ve not yet been to the store, have not bought a thing (cat food purchased a couple weeks ago).
Is there something wrong with me? All the panic, all the hoarding, all the nonsense…I just don’t care. I’ve cat food, cod and orange roughy in the freezer.. i really don’t care.
Shall i look for a good shrink tomorrow?
btw – hear tell ppl are hoarding meat and chicken.
try the fish aisle. fish is never out, and never hoarded. also – locate your local home-town butcher – you may need to look out-of-town. my butcher only buys local (except for fish, which i never buy from him), and is never out of beef and chicken. plus he makes the best ham salad on Fridays, which freezes well…
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I have been buying the same as usual, pretty much. I already had plenty in my freezer, so haven’t been buying meat the past couple of weeks. I bought a bag of frozen wild salmon filets not long ago from Costco. Cat and dog food I order from Amazon and have it delivered – monthly for the cat and every six weeks or so for the dog.
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I just got my grocery delivery. While there were a number of brand substitutions, there was only one item not available (aloe vera gel) and I turned down the sub for the butter I wanted. Got the milk, eggs and produce that I ordered. No bread flour, but I got 5# of store brand AP flour.
Much better than I expected.
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I wish Amazon delivered groceries where I live. But I do have Walmart pickup or delivery and our big chain grocery pickup or delivery. I’ve been doing grocery pickup since 3 days after I had my daughter, so about a year now. It’s awesome.
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I have been using the Walmart pickup for a couple of years. I decided to set it up in case I needed it, and a few months later hurt my knee. It has been great.
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