Safeway.com vs Albertsons.com. Safeway Wins!
Written: Mar 13 '05 (Updated Mar 13 '05)
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It has been a very long time since I've written a review, but I was so impressed with Safeway.com versus my experience with Albertsons.com that I felt compelled to write a review.
Registration
Registration at both Albertsons.com and Safeway.com was easy. You do have to enter personal information online because this is a personal delivery service.
One issue during registration at Safeway.com is that as you finish registration it says that your past shopping history associated with your Safeway club card will be loaded in a few minutes, but this was not true. I called customer service, who said that it takes at least 24 hours. My shopping history never loaded. However, this is a minor bug.
Ordering
Ordering items at Safeway.com was far easier than at Albertsons.com. Albertsons.com uses a pull down menu for accessing categories. Safeway.com uses a link tree in a side menu which is much easier to access and navigate.
Another advantage that Safeway.com has in ordering is that the specials are easy to find. Easy access to listed specials online is important because there is no way to use printed coupons online. At Albertsons.com, the first screen after logging in is the Bonus Buys screen, but there have never been any shown there when I log in. On the other hand, at Safeway.com I can go to Club Card Central and see all of the club card specials, including buy 1 get 1 free. An improvement I would suggest for both sites is that when sorting by price, that the sort work on unit price, not item price.
An advantage at Safeway.com is that you can specify special instructions, including the substitutions policy, for every item. You can update your instructions when you select the item or during checkout. Using Albertsons.com, you can only specify special instruction for the entire order. This is important for me because I don't want substitutions for sale items, but some items I need regardless.
Purchase
Completing the purchase, is easy. In both cases, in addition to entering standard ecommerce payment information, you need to chose the delivery window. I suggest planning ahead because already same and next day windows tend to be full, especially on the weekends. As grocery shopping online becomes more popular it will be even more difficult to get delivery when you want, unless the services expand their delivery fleets. Both sites provided free delivery for the first order. Albertsons.com charges $9.95 for delivery. Safeway.com charges $7.95 if you choose a 4 hour delivery window, or $9.95 if you choose a 2 hour delivery window. I used to have my personal assistant shop for me and I would end up paying her more by the hour than these charges, so the charges are reasonable. Same day delivery is not available through Albertsons.com, but can be for Safeway.com if the delivery windows are not full.
Delivery
I was very unsatisfied with my Albertsons.com delivery experience. They did not provide a printout of my items. I had to go through my order and figure out what was wrong or missing in comparison to my own order printout. Two items were missing and one item was wrong, smoked ham instead of honey ham. The final price for my delivery was not available online for a week. I had to follow up 4 times both on the phone and by email to get credit for the mistakes in my order.
Safeway.com provided a perfect delivery experience. The items were brought into the kitchen. I signed a list that showed which items were out of stock, the items that were delivered with their prices, and how much I saved using club card specials.
I tipped the Albertsons.com delivery person, but when I tried to tip the Safeway.com delivery person, I was surprised to be told that Safeway.com has a company policy against tipping and the best tip would be to call Customer Service. Hopefully, this is one better. Thanks Joseph!
Conclusion
Every aspect of the experience of shopping at Safeway.com from ordering to delivery exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend Safeway.com.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jiwhite
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Member: Janine White
Location: Chandler, AZ
Reviews written: 194
Trusted by: 142 members
About Me:
Criminologist turned Software Engineer
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