Is ‘Amazon Fresh’ worth the $15/mo? YES. I won’t go back…

First off, it’s hard to argue the roughly $15/mo is NOT worth the 2-4 hours a month you save from going to the grocery store (never mind the driving to/from, loading/unloading, stress/energy). I realize there are minor markups and some other nuances like minimum orders but I’d happily pay double for this service (which you almost will if you are not already an Amazon Prime member). I’m new to it however and will update this post with a follow-up in a couple months time.

Think of it this way, for $180/yr you never have to set foot in the grocery store again…that’s enough convincing for me and clearly many, many others. I believe this will be the status quo in the years to come.

For myself and many others, TIME is money. At only 29 I already see my time as a virtue that is relentlessly fleeting and I do anything I can in the way of automation to squeeze the most out of the little time that I do have (I’ll happily stay up late and spend 10 hours writing code to automate something that saves me an hour a month in perpetuity).

So just how much unnecessary time, gas and energy is spent going to the grocery store?

1. Multiple times a month driving to the store and back
   (gas, time, energy)
2. Loading and unloading groceries to/from your car. And if you happen to live in an apartment this is a nightmare!
   (time, energy)
3. Searching endless shelving and aisles for products.
   The only comparison I can draw is that it’s the difference between searching through a library for a book using the dewey decimal system (grocery stores) or just downloading the E-book on the internet (Amazon Fresh)
   (time, energy)
   
4. Waiting in lines after you spent 45 minutes trying to find the products you need to last you for the next 2 weeks and those damn products are always being shuffled around, only to wait at the register for some “extreme coupon-er” stay-at-home mom who has all the time in the world to squeeze every penny out of her dollar (most of us are too short on time for this madness to be worth it).
   (time, energy)

So when you think about it grocery stores remain one of the few industries whom don’t have a website where you can buy from online (along with the alcohol industry but that’s changing thanks to services like Drizly). Give it a shot, I weighed it out between Instacart and the others and didn’t want to bother with tipping a “delivery guy” or answering the door for them so I went with Amazon Fresh so they can just drop it off on my doorstep whether I was home or not. They have a 30 day trial for free, cancel anytime. And no I am not being paid for this but damn, I really should be.

Next I’ll be reviewing my service with Freshly.com – cooked gourmet dinners delivered for around $8/meal, no added sugars, all natural ingredients and all dishes are gluten-free if that matters to you.