Tips on getting the grocery delivery time you want

With more shoppers ordering their groceries online for delivery, customers are finding sold-out products and no available delivery windows. Here are some tips to get your groceries delivered when you want them.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Have you ordered groceries online? There is a good chance you have. Bay Area grocery delivery company Farmstead has had its business double since the pandemic began.

Co-founder and CEO Pradeep Elankumaran says, "I think it is safe to say no one in online groceries was expecting this level of interest in this short of period of time."
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Ibotta, a leading app for cash back on everyday purchases, looked into our new normal grocery shopping and found deliveries used to be 4% of grocery sales, now: 30%.

Ibotta's CEO, Bryan Leach, says it is an increase impossible to keep up with.

"People are having bad experiences because of long wait times," he says, "I think right now people are frustrated with how hard it is to get a time slot."

I asked on Facebook, Are you getting deliveries? Marjorie wrote, "There are no delivery slots."

Robert said, "I was told I would have to wait 2 weeks." Martha told me, "All spots taken."

However Phyllis Looney hit the jackpot when ordering online for a friend who lives in Gold Country. "So I placed the order around 12:30 and she got it around five o'clock," she said.

So what are the tricks -- other than sheer luck -- to get a delivery?

"Most of the major grocery delivery places advise you to get online first thing in the morning," Bryan Leach said. "And most slots are sold out by 8 or 9 in the morning."

"I think you should join the waitlist right now," says Pradeep Elankumaran.

Phyllis Looney says think ahead: "I would say in the Bay Area give at least a week's notice."

Take a look at more stories and videos by Michael Finney and 7 On Your Side.

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