The virtues and rewards of online shopping

If you are not already doing so, I'd just like to tell you the benefits (most especially the financial benefits) as I see them, of getting your weekly shop ordered online and delivered to your door. At first sight this may appear an extravagant luxury but you couldn't be more wrong. The next reaction of many is to assume you'll only get the fruit and vegetables on the point of putrefaction but it really doesn't happen. Let's face it, they'd quickly lose all of their online customers if they did this, and they're not dumb so they don't.

Setting up your account and finding the items for your first two or three shopping baskets does take a little time, but all of the shops have a variety of ways to save standard lists and you soon find it takes only about 10 minutes to put your entire order together ... and I don't know too many people who can do their weekly shop in person in 10 minutes even if they are wickedly good at handbreak turns with their trolley, or at scooping piles of tins into the trolley while running full tilt down an aisle. You'll need to try it a few times to get it right (the online shopping, not the handbreak turns) and get used to it but I think it is well worth persisting.

Ok, I need to convince you that you really do save money this way. This is why it saves me money:

1. You do not fall prey to all those spontaneous purchases ("Oooh look a bag of 10 doughnuts for £1 - just what needed! And 9 family bags of crisps for the price of 7! Oh and a microwave oven - I think I can just squeeze it onto my trolley...").
2. The sites make it so easy to compare prices at your ease - much easier than squinting at those shelf tickets.
3. You can buy big packs of heavy items like washing powder. You not only get the benefit of a lower price per kilo but also you do not have to give yourself a hernia heaving it in and out of your car in the pouring rain.
4. You save the cost of driving to the supermarket, or the bus fare.
5. You save time and can do something else with that 2 hour slot.

There are some downsides (but I think the upsides outweigh them by about 17 to 1):

1. You have to pay a delivery charge. If you pick and choose the time and day of your delivery, or spend £100+ you can get delivery for less or even for free. However, I believe the delivery charge is more than made up for by the saving on the cost of your petrol, the time you can use doing something more interesting and the cost savings you can make (see points 1 -3 above).
2. I never buy my eggs this way!!!
3. Items are sometimes out of stock (well they would have been if you'd gone in person I presume) and the substitutes are sometimes ok, sometimes not.
4. You don't get the markdowns on items with a close expiry date.

That's it really.