Monday, August 25, 2014

Amazon Pantry Review

When I was in Savannah a few weeks ago my sweet hubby, unknown to me, signed us up for Amazon Pantry:

"Prime Pantry is a new shopping experience on Amazon.com. Prime members can shop popular household essentials and have them conveniently delivered.
Adding your first Prime Pantry item to Cart starts a Prime Pantry box. As you shop, you see that each Pantry item tells you what percentage of a Pantry box it fills based on its size and weight. Pantry boxes are large and can hold up to 45 pounds or four cubic feet of household products. As you check items off your list, we continuously track and show you how full your box is.
You can buy as much or as little as you want for a flat $5.99 delivery fee per Prime Pantry box. Save gas, save money, save time."
 
I was a bit surprised when these two BIG boxes showed up at my door...

Full disclosure I was terrified about what I would find... Homeboy NEVER does grocery shopping. I was sure that this little "test" was going to be a disaster and I was SURE that hubby spent WAY too much money on this little adventure.

Sure that I was going to be irritated by the process I dug into that first box...

At first glance it didn't look too bad... I mean pasta, tomato soup, goldfish, Fiber One bars (Emma's Fav.), Salsa and taco shells SCORE...

As I proceeded to unpack the randomness began to appear. It was actually a bit of a therapy session... It provided me with a look into my husbands mind. Multiple times I found myself asking if he wished that I bought certain products or why he felt the need to buy such items for our family.. it was a learning experience and there were plenty of items that I would NEVER buy on my own... but does he wish that I would?

This little old can of Corned Beef Hash is a perfect example... WHAT? WHY? but apparently something that he likes...

Side Note: Many of the cans came damaged from the delivery... they seem to randomly put items into the box...

I've also never bought canned green beans... But I guess Matt wants some on-hand...


Smashed Milano cookies... the crumbs still taste good. But again this isn't something that I've ever even thought about buying... Too expensive for just a few cookies.

He also picked out some cereal that I've never purchased previously and well the kids seem to like it! Again the box is smashed but whatever...


Soup in a box though.... did NOT make it through the shipping process... At least they were smart enough to have it in its own protective bag so it didn't ruin everything else.

Hubby was also smart enough to include a bribe in the pantry shipment... He is a good man!

Here is the full bounty from the two boxes...
 

Really not too bad... but I was interested to see how much the convenience of having our pantry items delivered would cost me... We figured a 20% premium...
 
Last weekend I printed up the invoice that detailed how much each item cost and I headed out to my local GIANT... there was one constant across the board when I compared prices....
 
Ready for it.....
 
EVERY SINGLE ITEM was CHEAPER through Amazon!!! WHAT???? I was shocked!
 
Example.. those Milano Cookies $3.69 at Giant and $2.68 at Amazon (over $1 in savings)
 
There were a few items that Giant didn't even have and for the below comparison I completely omitted them from my calculations...
 
Giant Food Total: $ 162.54
Amazon Total: $133.20
 
My final verdict...
 
I have to give Matt a big pat on the back for this one... I think that from now on I will be shopping for many of my pantry items through Amazon Prime Pantry and that at the grocery I will stick to the outside aisles. I will also keep a running list of pantry items so that I can fill an entire box.. need to justify the $5.99 per box delivery fee. (the savings alone also seemed to make up for that). Additionally, Amazon pantry has coupons for select items that I didn't even factor into the above price comparisons... With coupons Matt had an additional $2.08 off his total...
 
When it comes to the dents and damaged items...
 
I think that Amazon will continue to refine their shipping procedures (as this is a new niche for them) and, fingers crossed, items will not arrive as smashed as they did for this first order... Additionally, we took photos of all damaged items and sent them to Amazon and we were reimbursed back.

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