TLDR: Aldi's is great...their delivery service, not so much.
I have never been to this Aldi location, note that this is not a review of the store itself, but I have been to many an Aldi in my day and love them. When I learned today that I could have Aldi delivered to my Queens apartment (I live too far to conveniently go to the store), I was extremely excited. This, however, is a review of the Aldi delivery process...
First, it is through a third party system called Instacart, which is somewhat of a bizarre experience. I placed my order online, through Aldi's website, which bounced to Instacart's system during checkout. Instacart then sends someone to the store to shop for you and deliver your groceries. Delivery is free, but of course you pay a service fee, a tip, and the items are marked up anywhere from ten cents to a dollar. Such would be the price for convenience, not terrible, and being an Aldi, still less money than a lot of grocery stores would charge for you to buy and bring home the groceries yourself. Except that as it turned out, this experience was not convenient.
I ordered within a two hour delivery period, was sent text updates as the shopper picked up my things (it was weird for me), was given "refunds" as items were found to be out of stock, and so on. My shopper was finding bizarre items to be out of stock...bananas, green peppers, bread? But ok, maybe the store is really just that empty. All looks to be going smoothly, the order is out for delivery within the two hour time frame, when all of sudden it disappears from the system and starts back at square one. My order then appears to bounce around to a few potential shoppers, without much or any formal communication from Instacart, and finally, almost two hours after the original two hours, a new shopper is at the store getting my groceries. This new shopper turned out to be great. Bananas, green peppers and bread, it turns out, actually were in stock. Apparently the shoppers can message you directly, and she was very communicative. It was helpful, as by then I had lost confidence in the system, but ultimately if I'm paying for someone to buy my groceries for me, I don't particularly want to be sitting on my couch remote shopping with them...it was again, a bizarre experience. Long story longer, almost six hours later, I finally received my groceries.
Additionally, and perhaps obviously, this experience was also not immune to the pitfalls you would imagine come with hiring someone to grocery shop for you...some of the items were incorrect (and Instacart paid much less for what I received than what I was ultimately charged for the items), produce selections left something to be desired, etc. I was able to report these items to Aldi/Instacart and request a refund. Fingers crossed I get it...
I read reviews of Instacart when it was becoming debatable whether or not I would ever receive my groceries, and the reviews online are not great. In hindsight, I should've reviewed Instacart itself before using Aldi's service, but I naively trusted Aldi to have a system worked out if they were choosing to offer it to their consumers.
Thankfully, some of the horror stories outlined online have either been resolved or did not happen to me. Instacart did charge an upfront cost much higher than the original bill, but they very quickly adjusted this once the final cost was determined. I have been able to easily request refunds for the incorrect items, although we will see how quickly or if I actually receive the refunds...my original shopper was obviously not good, but the shopper who ended up with my order was wonderful. On the whole, it was a strange experience. Not necessarily bad, but certainly not good, and with the potential to have gone so very wrong. Ultimately, I don't know that I will ever again bother with the inconvenience, for the sake of "convenience". It wasn't worth the hassle, even for Aldi's low, low prices. read more