GIANT Now Offers Online Grocery Shopping, Delivery

It seems every month, you can shop for more and more things online, instead of having to travel to the local store. Clothing, books, music, movies and more have all gone digital, to the benefit of consumers and at the expense of local stores.

Well, you can now add groceries to the list. GIANT food stores announced last week that they are now offering home delivery of their products in the Upper Dublin area through the internet grocer "Peapod."

Essentially the system works like this, and it's pretty simple: you enter the Peapod website and register, then begin shopping. Once you're ready to checkout, you select a time when the food will be delivered to your home (Peapod offers the ability for you to sign for the order, or to leave it in a sealed container that you must then return). Then, you place your order, which includes a few extra fees, and await the arrival of your food from a nearby .

Wait a minute. Fees? Yes, Peapod charges for two additional fees on top of your price: a delivery surcharge, and a gas surcharge. Patch looked into these fees, and according this Washington Post article, the more you spend online, the lower your delivery surcharge is.

"With Giant's Peapod service, you pay $6.95 for orders more than $100 and a dollar more than that if you spend between $75 and $100. If you dip below $75, you'll be paying nearly $10," the article says.

However, the piece is a little dated, so Patch placed a faux-order to find out what the current rates are. We found that an order of $100.78 left us with a $7.95 delivery fee. In addition, Peapod charges a "fuel surcharge" fee, tied to gas prices. For us, that came to 98 cents.

However, Peapod also offers discounts as well, especially if you're flexible in your delivery time and can make yourself available when the truck's already in the area. As we placed our faux-order, we were prompted to take a Friday 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m. slot, and that knocked $2 off our total order.

So the bottom line: our initial order of $100.78 worth of groceries came to a total of $107.71 for the home delivery, or roughly an extra seven bucks.

We were also prompted to enter our GIANT bonus card number, which we didn't have, and also weren't very selective in our order (25 pounds of chicken breast anyone?) so there may be additional savings when compared to store prices.

In addition, GIANT members can also still get their Gas Extra Rewards and A+ School Rewards points.

So if you're elderly, expecting, a stay at home parent, or if you just plain don't like going to the grocery store, it may be worth the extra bucks to get your food delivered straight your door.