Amazon Fresh… Worth It? Our Experience Might Change Your Mind

Our Saturday’s consist mainly of running errands. Bleh.

Now, I don’t always dread errands. For the past few months, we’ve been starting our Saturday down at our local Acai Jungle Cafe; they have the BEST tasting acai bowls I love their Tropical Paradise smoothie! I always have them top my acai bowl with bananas, hemp seeds, and granola. Yum!

However, errands that end up being 2 1/2 hours of nothing but grocery shopping…on a Saturday…with hundreds of people slowly walking down isles…with nowhere to park…don’t make me want to leave the house.

If you’ve ever been to Costco on the weekends, around 12 Noon, you know what I’m talking about. It’s extremely busy and I may have a mild case of claustrophobia. Not to mention we have to stop at a few different stores to find the food we need; Costco, Ralphs, Sprouts, and sometimes Trader Joe’s/Target. The shopping usually takes up our entire morning to mid-afternoon.

I don’t know about you but I really don’t enjoy grocery shopping. I wish there was an easier way!

Amazon Fresh is the Better Way (in theory)

I heard about Amazon Fresh from a co-worker. We love Amazon and know they offer great items for low prices so we thought that if Amazon Fresh could replace a trip to Sprouts/Ralphs/Target, why not shop there and see how it goes?

The thought of Amazon Fresh turned out to be WAY better than the actual service. Let me explain.

As I’m writing this post, it’s 6:36pm and my groceries are supposed to arrive between 5pm-7pm. Not looking good on Amazon’s part.

Normally, Amazon gives you a pretty accurate estimate as to when your regular Amazon products will arrive. I love that feature.

Amazon Fresh doesn’t.

You have no idea where your items are, if they’ve arrived, or when they will arrive. You have no way to contact their delivery person because they don’t tell you how the food is delivered.

When you’re ordering items from their site, you have the choice of “Doorstep Delivery” or “Attended Delivery.” Doorstep Delivery doesn’t require someone to be present when the food arrives, while Attended Delivery (at no additional fee) says that someone will hand deliver your items to you (they imply hand delivery).

I chose Attended Delivery because our apartment community doesn’t have an easily-accessible door from the outside and I specifically mentioned in the notes section to CALL me when they arrive so I can meet them at the gate. Postmates handles this no problem so Amazon should be able to as well, right?

Well it turns out, what I imagined this service to be was NOTHING like the actual service.

Where to begin…

It’s now 8:58pm.

Back around 6:45pm, 15 minutes before the end of their delivery window, I was worried our food wasn’t going to show up at all – which is a terrible feeling since we could have picked up these items in person the day before.

It was time for my dog to go out but in fear of missing the delivery person, I walked out of our community the way most people would enter (as to not miss them).

And there, next to the trash can, was our Amazon Fresh food.

Thanks for letting me know it was there! NOT!

They did EXACTLY what I asked them not to which was to leave the items outside of our community.

In small lettering on the shipping label it read, “Carrier — Leave if no response.” Now, I’d be OK if they tried calling me, I didn’t pick up, and they left the food outside. That would be on me.

The problem is that they DIDN’T contact me at all and just left the food out there. So disappointed.

Anyway, I lugged the two large boxes back to my apartment, opened them up, and to my surprise they forgot two items entirely.

Plus, two of items we ordered were damaged and/or extremely low-quality.

Of the items we bought but never received (carrots and Daiya mozzarella), I went to Amazon Fresh’s customer service department. At first, the only two options for contact were email or phone, both of which wouldn’t get me to a customer service representative fast enough. I then saw a small, blue hyperlink that said something about exchanges/refunds. I clicked that link and was taken to another page where I was able to select the items I didn’t receive and got an immediate refund. That’s a plus.

For the two old/damaged items above (tomato, sweet potatoes) I tried the same thing but the site said these items weren’t eligible for a refund.

Would I Recommend Amazon Fresh?

Let’s put it this way… no, I wouldn’t.

PROS
– Grocery shopping from home
– Avoid checkout lines, people, busy stores
– Cash back (if you use Amazon credit card, we don’t)
– Free delivery if total is more than $40, $9.99 if under – must be a Prime member
– Easy refund policy for certain items

CONS
– Can’t track your delivery
– You are forced to buy in certain quantities
– Not as many organic options
– Have to trust they’ll pick good fruit/vegetables
– Must order in advance
– Don’t get food delivered immediately (if you need avocados today, too bad)
– Won’t completely replace the need to grocery shop

With everything taken into account, we probably won’t use Amazon Fresh again.

Maybe we just got a bad delivery or something, like we’re the 1 out of a million? Who knows?

If you’ve had a similar (or completely different) experience, please let me know in the comments. We’d be eager to try another service if you have recommendations!

** UPDATE **
I complained about this terrible service and Amazon gave me a refund for the entire purchase PLUS 1 month free of Amazon Prime.