I think everyone has heard of Walmart grocery pickup by now. Personally, I find the best thing about Walmart’s version of grocery pickup, is that it’s free. Many other stores charge a fee for the service.

I want to share with you some pros and cons that I found when I used Walmart’s grocery pickup.

First, I have not always been a huge fan of Walmart and prefer Target and Sprouts to try and save money, and I just like the feel of the stores a little bit better they are usually cleaner and more well-kept. I tried my hand at Walmart’s grocery pickup and I will go through the pros and cons first, then let you know my overall feelings at the very end of this review. A little disclaimer here, Walmart did not pay me anything and I did not receive any compensation or any credits or discounts of any kind to write this review these are my own views and my true thoughts about Walmart’s grocery pickup.

Pros:

1. Using an app to order

The app was a great tool to use because I could search for anything that I would normally buy at the grocery store and I could find it on the app and add it to my cart, similar to any online shopping experience you have. However, I found that it was even better because when I was ready to pick up, I could click that I was on my way in the app. I turned on my location services and it would literally track me all the way to the store-kind of creepy, I get that-but they knew when I was there so that they could have my order waiting for me when I arrived.

You can find it in your app store as Walmart grocery.

Some other cool features of the app are that you can view previous orders, payment methods, referrals, and you can save items in your favorites or reorder very easily.

2. Ease of pickup

When I arrived at Walmart and parked in one of the store pickup labeled parking spots, it was like they were waiting for me. They had my order out in less than 2 minutes (because I had checked in on the app), plus they had super friendly customer service, and a welcome bag for me! I wanted to help load up my bags but that was certainly not necessary. I spent less than 5 minutes at Walmart and was on my way home with my newborn baby staying in the car the whole time, ready to unload everything.

3. Time saved

I wanted to track my time to really see if I was going to save time by using the pickup service. It took me a little while to navigate the website because I did not use the app to order the first time. The whole process took me around 30 minutes to place my product order. Then about 10 minutes to the store and back and 5 minutes loading up my car. I know that when I’m grocery shopping, I cannot spend less than an hour total time in the store grocery shopping. I get very easily distracted, I search for other products I probably don’t need, and I end up looking up things on my phone to save money. So I would say that I saved at least 45 minutes total time.

4. Not buying impulse items

I’ve never actually compared what I have on my list versus what I end up buying when I’m at the store, but I can tell you that it’s probably an average of $25 per trip. When I go to the store hungry that can double and I will end up buying a bunch of junk food that I will either eat (don’t need those calories) or throw away (which PAINS me, because I hate waste). So I have to be very careful to not go when I’m hungry. If you are a disciplined person and don’t buy a lot of impulse items, then this benefit may not do much for you, but I think in the long run it will help me contain my impulsive purchases. 

5. Can still use savings catcher

I wish I would have researched this before I let my receipt expire, but I went on to the Walmart website and you can use savings catcher for your grocery pickup receipts-see the instructions below.

Online Grocery Pick-up

• Enter in the TC# and date from your Online Grocery purchase. You can find your Online Grocery order information by logging in on grocery.walmart.com, or in the Walmart Grocery app under Account > Your Orders.

6. Save money with $10 off

If anyone knows me, they know that I like to find a way to save a buck. And this was actually the driving factor for me trying out the pickup service. You can use this link which is a referral link from me, and get $10 off your first order from Walmart grocery if you spend $50 or more.

 

CLICK HERE TO SAVE ON YOUR FIRST ORDER!

 

Cons

Now I do have to talk about the cons of using Walmart grocery pickup …

1. No coupons

See above where I talked about how I love to save money. So it is sad to me that all those coupons that I clip or the other apps that I use to save money are not applicable for Walmart grocery. At the end of the day, I’ve decided that I can use grocery pickup for things I don’t have a coupon for and I will go inside or go to another store for things that I do.

I have discovered that you can still go through ebates to receive cash back on your order. Ebates is an online cash back site, basically they give you the cash back that they get from you using their link to the website. Walmart is only 1% back on food, but hey, every little bit helps!

And if you don’t have ebates yet you can click the link below to get it and after you spend $25 at any website you’ll get an instant $10 back on top of your cash back! Winning all around!

2. If you forgot to order something you still have to go into the store

In the grand scheme of things if you forgot to order something and have to run into the store, it’s not that hard to do. I would recommend going in before you pick up your order. It is an inconvenience that you would not have incurred if you would have thought of it earlier or if you would already be running into the store to purchase all of your groceries, but nonetheless it’s important to point out.

3. You don’t get to pick your own produce or perishable items

I was very nervous about not picking out my own produce and perishable items, but for the sake of trying out everything I decided to add some produce and perishables to my order. I will also say that I don’t normally buy produce at Walmart because I’m usually not very impressed by the selection. I did go with some basics like bananas and potatoes, and what they selected for me was actually similar to what I would have selected for myself. My milk and other dairy were at least one and a half weeks out from the expiration, so I was happy with that. My salad was at least a week away from expiration, another good thing!

4. Substitutions

Sometimes what you ordered goes out of stock before they have a chance to pick it. This means that they may substitute another item that they deem as equivalent. The positive side of this is that they will tell you what items were substituted and a lot of times you end up paying for what you wanted and getting something even better. Sometimes you want a specific brand or specific size so you can always tell them “no” that you don’t want the substitution and they won’t charge you for the original item either. This can cause another inconvenience because likely you will have to go into the store or go to another store to get what you need. I have not encountered this yet, but I know several people who have and, overall, they speak positively of substitutions.

5. No Reusable Bags

I like to use reusable bags when shopping because I can get more items in them which means fewer trips to and from the car. Plus, when I shop at target I can save $0.05 a bag when I use reusable bags. If you enjoy reusable bags then you can ask the person who is loading it into your car to keep the bags and move them into your reusable bags, however that’s a bit of a hassle and takes longer.

 

The Consensus

Overall, I’m going to give the Walmart grocery pickup a big thumbs up because all of the cons that I noticed actually have a positive side to them. I’ll still buy my produce from stores other than Walmart, but I won’t hesitate to pick up my milk and my salad along with all the other essentials that I need on a weekly basis. I believe this is going to help me a lot with meal planning because I can prep out my meals at the same time as I’m grocery shopping online. I hope that you will try out Walmart pickup as well and tell me what you think. Maybe you use another grocery store or pickup service that you would like to share with me below, I would love to hear all about the other services! If you’ve used Walmart pickup and have anything else to add let me know below as well!!

Free Gift I received on my first pick up!