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Is An Online Grocery Store Right for You?
Buying Groceries Online
For Local Groceries
Instacart Grocery Delivery
For Healthier Groceries
Thrive Market Subscription
For Asian Groceries
Umamicart Grocery Delivery
Grocery shopping can be a relaxing errand for some people, and I’m very jealous. I always end up hot, itchy, and overstimulated. No matter how much I try to prepare by eating beforehand, I still derail from my shopping list and buy random overpriced treats. Online grocery shopping has been a game-changer for me. It might be for you too. These are our favorite online grocers.
Be sure to check our Best Meal Kits and Best Snack Subscription Boxes guides for additional recommendations.
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Photograph: d3sign/Getty Images
Is An Online Grocery Store Right for You?
Buying Groceries Online
Online grocery delivery can be a huge help if you live in a food desert or don’t want to take public transportation when shopping for your essentials. It can also be helpful as a supplement to typical grocery shopping—like if you have staple ingredients at home, but you need fresh produce, and you can’t leave the house.
When you place your order with any of these services, don’t forget to choose your substitutions after checking out. That’ll help your shopper make replacement picks if something is out of stock. Also, keep in mind that delivery tends to be cheaper if the weather is nice and it’s not a busy time. For example, if you’re buying stuffing and cranberries for Thanksgiving dinner, it’ll be cheaper to place your order and get it delivered a few days in advance than waiting until the day before. Don’t forget to tip your delivery folks!
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Photograph: InstaCart
For Local Groceries
Instacart Grocery Delivery
My town has several different grocery stores, all of which have wildly varying prices. To get the best deals, I go to one place for produce, one place for pantry items, and another place for meat. Instacart was a game-changer for me. It lets you see the prices of different items across different retailers, and the cost is usually the same as what it would be in the store, if not cheaper. The mental load feels like less work, too—I can methodically go through my grocery list and figure out the best place to buy from. These conveniences, combined with frequent coupons and the option for discounted gift cards, offset the cost of delivery and tips for me.
You can even check out using an EBT card. There’s also an Instacart Plus membership to skip delivery fees for $10 per month, which may be worthwhile if you shop frequently.
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Photograph: Thrive Market
For Healthier Groceries
Thrive Market Subscription
Thrive Market emphasizes a vast selection of organic items and avoids food additives and GMOs. These buzzwords can be meaningless, but if you try to follow a certain dietary lifestyle or need to avoid specific ingredients, Thrive Market probably has options that align with your specific criteria. There aren’t fresh fruits and veggies available, but there’s a wide range of pantry and frozen goods, plus personal care products and household items. WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu and his wife have been happily using Thrive for years with no qualms. A Thrive Market membership costs $12 per month or $60 per year, which grants you access to the marketplace.
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Photograph: Umamicart
For Asian Groceries
Umamicart Grocery Delivery
Umamicart has a huge range of Asian groceries available, ranging from produce to pantry essentials to specialty sauces and snacks. Items are priced à la carte, but there are frequent sales, and no subscription is required. If you’d rather have a subscription than pick out your individual grocery items, the store does offer a Pantry Box Subscription and a Snack Box Subscription, both priced as low as $36 per month.
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Photograph: GoPuff
For Practically Anything
Gopuff Delivery Service
I have an unhealthy obsession with GoPuff. So much so that I’ll sometimes scroll through the app for fun to see all the newly added items. I mainly use it to buy things like produce, snacks, period pads, and paper towels for my apartment. But the app also carries products across a wide range of categories including skincare, (it’s how I discovered my new favorite exfoliating face scrub), makeup (Elf products included), electronics (like an external battery pack or Bluetooth speaker), and even sex toys. It helps that the app’s interface is easy to use and most of my orders are always delivered in 30 minutes or less. At this point, I’m not sure how I ever lived in New York City without it. —Brenda Stolyar
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Photograph: Hungry Root
For Specialty Groceries
Hungryroot Meals
With Hungryroot, you’ll take a quiz about what you like to eat, and the service ships groceries to your door, along with recipes based on whatever is in the week’s box. For example, one of my boxes contained chickpea pasta shells and a superfood tomato sauce, but I was free to dress it up with whatever I wanted or use the ingredients separately. It’s a fantastic way to supplement your pantry. You can opt to pick out groceries yourself, or Hungryroot will do it for you based on your food profile. Allergen and diet filters abound. There are plans for one person, two people, and three or more people. You can view the available groceries here to get an idea of the offerings.
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Photograph: Misfits Market
For Fighting Food Waste
Misfits Market Grocery Box
Misfits Market’s mission is to fight food waste. It offers produce, pantry staples, and proteins as well as dairy and bakery items. Oftentimes the produce is funny-looking, or nonperishables may have impending best-by dates, but everything is perfectly safe and usable. It also means the cost is significantly lower than it would be if you went to the store. You might be familiar with Imperfect Foods, which had a similar mission—the service has since merged with Misfits Market.
My delivery was mainly produce, all of which was super fresh. Everything was in great shape and either ripe or nearly ripe—nothing was bruised or past its best condition. The fruits and veggies were packed securely, but the packaging was minimal. Items were nestled in plain brown paper rather than plastic. However, if creativity isn’t your strong suit, or you’re not a fan of fruits and vegetables, you might have a tough time using everything up. You also have to customize your box every week, so if that sounds like too much hassle, this may not be the best service.
After signing up for a free membership, you’ll have a three-day shopping window each week to check out the selection. Fill your box with whatever you’d like—the options rotate from week to week, but there will usually be produce, pantry items, and meats to choose from at the bare minimum. You will be charged once the shopping window closes. If you don’t fill your box or meet the order minimum, that week’s delivery is automatically skipped.
