Online Grocery Shopping: Saving a Packet, or A Total Racket?
This week I decided to try online shopping. For groceries rather than the kind of items that one would usually shop for online, i.e. dvd’s cd’s etc.
With both kids home during the school holidays, the idea of loading up the car with all assorted paraphernalia simply to pop to the shops for groceries, having to wrangle them both into a trolley and then having no space left to actually put stuff, *really* didn’t appeal to me.
You know what I mean right?
So I thought I would give one of our local stores the benefit of trying out their online shopping facility.
The website in question was easy to use, and fast to figure out the navigation, and I was able to get my shopping fairly quickly.
The whole process really opened my eyes to the possibilities and pitfalls of the concept and I thought that sharing my experience might help others avoid the potholes on the virtual super highway.
Whether or not you choose to shop for groceries and basic necessities online, boils down to what you find more valuable to you.
Time vs Money
This is the question you should ask yourself:
If you are able to save an hour by shopping online, is that one hour more valuable to you, in terms of using the time to earn money by working on a project (if you’re a WAHM), than if you were to down tools, and go directly to the store to save money by finding bargains and specials that are not online. Consider everything right down to the gas/petrol required to get to the store, the distance travelled, the energy expended etc.
Here are some other pointers that can help you to improve your time management and cost saving ratio as well as some other interesting facts about doing grocery shopping online.
- Make a Menu Plan: Do not deviate from that plan. Download our handy meal planner to help you plan out a weeks meals in advance. It can be used in both Excel or Open Office, and is fully customizable and free.
- Shops with a List: From now on that is your Indian name. Make a list for groceries, based solely on your meal planner (did you download it yet?) and on any additional cleaning materials, other household items you may need. Ladies, chocolate is not a necessary household item, nor can it be categorized under ‘cleaning materials’, no matter how much you’d like it to.
- Do not browse: Browsing unnecessarily leads to spending unnecessarily. Yes the boxes are pretty. Yes the pictures are colourful, but IGNORE them. You have a list. You are “Shops with a List” remember?
- Environmentally Friendly: Consider that if 20 people shop online, that would otherwise have driven cars to the store, you are actually saving some bad emissions from being released into the air. Yes, the delivery guy still has to drive to your house, but take one car versus twenty? Basic math says you’re helping the environment.
- Temptation Not: You won’t be tempted by the freshly baked cinnamon rolls and coffee if you can’t smell them right?
The Down Side: There is also a down side of course, and by shopping online, you will not be able to see any specials that are only available in store. Items that might have been marked down are not listed on online grocery store sites, so where you could save quite a bit by buying bananas that are ripe right now, and needing to be sold immediately at rock bottom prices.
- Premium Only: Sometimes when you shop online at a big online retailer for groceries, all orders are received at a centralized depot, and very often they will only carry the premium brand version of the product that you are looking for. So where at your local store you may have as many as three to four different brands of nappies available to choose from, they may only carry the most expensive premium brand. Ditto Olive Oil. Ditto Chocolate. But chocolate wasn’t on your list though right?
- Expiry Dates: My online retailer has a feature which allows me to send a note to the ‘personal shopper’ who will be picking out the products for me. I use this to instruct them to please select the item that has the expiry date as far in the future as possible i.e. milk/bread/meat. Failure to do that, results in the products I’m ordering to be expiring within a day or two of them being delivered. Fact.
- Package Sizes: This again, is probably not the same at each retailer, but watch the package sizes carefully. You may be buzzing to discover this amazing bargan! Then when you receive it, you realise that it’s because you ordered the 100g bag instead of the 250g bag. If you aren’t there in person, at least read the fine print.
- Bulk Bargains: Be aware of the bulk bargain trap. Buying the larger item in order to save money, isn’t always cheaper! Make sure you work out the difference in price per pound/kilo/gram before selecting the bulk option. Fact.
- Local Products: This is a thorny issue as we all have it drummed into us that we should buy local products. I understand why. But I do not endorse this when the premium foreign brand is double the quality of the local one, and half the price. Fact. Yes, I’m talking about Tate & Lyle Demerara Sugar Cubes (ZAR 17.99) vs Hulettes Brown Sugar Cubes (R34.99). There is JUST no excuse for this sort of pricing, carbon foot print or not. If local brands want to compete, they’d better do so on equal footing. Charging double the price and hoping to guilt us into buying it will NOT fly with me or any of the other consumers I know.
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WAHM: A Great Way to Promote your Business
Being a Work at Home Mom can be one of the most rewarding things that you do.
But we also know how hard it can be all by yourself.
For example, where on earth would you even begin to find investors for your idea? A partner? A service provider?
You’re just starting out and you need to find every possible avenue to market yourself, your product and your idea. Current Social Networks focus more on YOU the person, as opposed to YOU the business. It can be a veritable zoo of information, and you rarely know which service to use and when to promote yourself.
However, we have found one, thanks to Darren Rowse at Problogger, called You Noodle, which focuses on both. Did we mention it’s free?
YouNoodle harnesses the power of social networking, and showcases start-ups, websites, new businesses and existing ventures.
Giving you an easy to use platform to showcase your ideas whether they are brand new and still in the building phase, or if you are already established and simply wanting to promote your products and services to a unique market of people.
Some of you may wish to keep your ideas to yourself, naturally the fear of being copied or beaten to market is frightening for some, but ask yourself, what guarantee do you have that you keep your ideas to yourself, and someone doesn’t beat you to market anyway? Why not put yourself out there, and put your stamp and your face behind your ‘big idea’ right from the start.
It is about taking ownership of your idea and seeking out like minded entrepeneurs, and more importantly POTENTIAL INVESTORS. As a WAHM what an amazing opportunity to be able to reach the ears of the people who may be able to help you launch your idea into the stratosphere, all while you are sitting at home.
Don’t forget to connect with NessWorld while you’re there, you can follow NessWorlds’ progress by following this link to my profile and connecting with us there.
Remember if you are going to promote yourself and your business, have your summary, most professional profile photo, and some business graphics ready. If you are in the Cape Town area and need help getting the perfect profile photograph taken, you are welcome to email me to arrange a quick low cost photoshoot (I will offer special rates to NessWorld fans), and of course I can also be of service in getting business graphics designed for you (graphic design services I can offer globally thanks to the wonder of the internet), and optimized for web use, again, please contact me via email with your requirements, naturally I will offer special rates for NessWorld followers and fans.
I started NessWorld as a way of helping other WAHMs (work at home moms) get access to these kinds of professional services at affordable rates (when you have a household to maintain, we know what kind of strain that can put on your marketing budget!) and this is my way of helping out.
Free Resources for WAHMs: WiseStamp Email Signature
In the past, using free email addresses like Gmail and Hotmail, was the domain of travelers, students and people who needed their email to be mobile, and easily accessible from anywhere on the planet where you could find an internet connection.
These days email is pretty much accessible from anywhere, but in many cases having a more generic email such as a Gmail address is preferable to having to tote around information for more than one email address, and having to log into different control panels in order to access email.
Particularly if you have several email address for various roles, Gmail makes a perfect catch-all address so that you only have to check one email account to get all your information. This is particularly useful for Blackberry users for example, so instead of having five or six mail accounts on your phone, you just use the one Gmail address.
One of the ways that you can dress up your gmail account is by using the Wisestamp Email Signature. Its a great way to give your email that professional edge, even if you’re sending it from a web based source.
It’s available as a plugin for Firefox, so you can quickly and easily just click on the Wisestamp logo on the bottom right of your browser, and it will insert a very professional looking (and fully customizable) email signature with graphical icons linking your readers to your social networking links etc.
It looks like this (for example):
(Editor) www.nessworld.com
(Design) www.yoursitehere.com
(Photography) www.yoursitehere.com
(Mobile) +1 123 555 9876
Doesn’t that look much better than simply signing off with your name? Looking professional can make a big impact on retaining those good clients!
Remember, this works as a plugin for Firefox , so you need to be running the Firefox browser in order to make use of it. You can download it here.
read moreFree Resources for WAHMs: Free Fax 2 Email Number
Are you a WAHM (Work At Home Mom) and need a fax number?
Did you know that you no longer have to rent a phone line, in order to be able to receive faxes? In fact, you no longer even need a fax machine!
Instead you receive your faxes, as attachments to your email! Doesn’t that make life a lot easier? It will certainly save you costs in the long run, and anything that saves on paper, saves trees, and that’s good for the planet, which scores major points in my book.
You can go to this website now, and get your own free fax to email number, by simply signing up. (Only available to South African Residents).
- A fax to email number can be printed on your business stationery, and business cards as soon as you receive it.
- People then fax as normal to the number, as you’ve given it to them.
- You then receive the fax, on an email, attached as a .pdf file. Most computers can read these files, but if you have any trouble, then you need to download Adobe Reader (look for the free reader bottom right).
- It’s really that simple to begin to receive faxes. This is really useful, if you need to receive fax orders for the business that you are running from home.
- If you have a smart phone, like a Blackberry or iPhone, you can then also receive your email wherever you are, at the shops, waiting to pick up your kids from school etc. So you need never be out of touch, or miss another order!
Fax 2 Email is by no means a new technology, but it certainly is very helpful, particularly when you are first starting out in business on your own, because it opens yet another potential communication channel between you and your customers. This service is provided free by Vodacom, as they receive an incentive from Telkom based on the number of inbound faxes. Therefore it costs you, the consumer nothing to receive your faxes on email. There are numerous places that offer this service and you are under no obligation to use vodacom as the service reseller.
Please note that for you to SEND a fax is not free. However, if you are operating with email and internet, in most cases, companies should provide you with an option to email information that you need, or even email in scanned documents as an alternative to sending a fax.
There should always be a way to do something for free.
NessWorld, in support of WAHM’s everywhere.
Free Resources for WAHMs: Invoicing Software
Many things are given away for free on the internet these days. A great deal of these things that are given away for free, are useful. A great deal more of them, are of no use at all.
Therefore it is really great when you find something that makes your life infinitely easier!
As WAHMs we need every last spare second that we can squeeze out of the day, so when I found Paymo’s free Invoicing and Time-Tracking Software, it proved to be an absolute gem!
Image courtesy of www.paymo.bizSo Why Is It Free?
Paymo, state on their website that they want to support freelancers and small businesses, so the use of their service is free for companies with 3 employees/users or less. Once you need to add a fourth user, they begin charging for the use of their service at USD $ 3.99 (approx ZAR 24.00) a month per user. Please note if you have the need to produce more than three invoices per month (for those freelancers dealing with multiple clients), they have a very affordable $9.99 per month unlimited invoicing option, which is totally worth it!
That is still a bargain, given the scope and functionality of their product!
Image Courtesy of www.paymo.bizSo How Does it Work?
In a nutshell, the strength of Paymo, for myself in particular (as a freelancer) lies in their time tracking feature of their software.
Once you’ve signed up for an account and set up your details, you simply click on the tab (on their website that says) Time-Tracker. This opens up a handy little widget in a new browser window (Windows users) or in the Dashboard (Mac Users) that you can click to say ‘start’ or ‘stop’ as you are working on your clients project.
Each client/project/task can have it’s own per hour billing rate. So for example, you could charge more or less depending on the who the client is, how difficult the work is etc. It is all completely customizeable.
Image courtesy of www.paymo.biz
Why Do You need it?
While Paymo, is designed with freelancers and small businesses in mind, the time tracking feature is just one of several that would come in really useful to any small business.
- It’s internet based, so you can log in to your Paymo dashboard from anywhere, and produce an invoice (snaps fingers) just like that!
- Clients can view their invoices online, eliminating the need for printing out invoices and mailing them (save the trees!) or alternatively they can be downloaded and emailed as a .pdf file.
- It will produce reports for you showing you how much time you work, and how much you ‘slack off’ if you enable the time tracking feature. (This feature is nothing short of beautiful, since it colour codes each client/project differently too, showing you how much time you are spending on each one.
- It will show you which invoices are paid and which are not, because they’ve included a handy feature which allows you to enter payments from your clients etc. So while it is not accounting software per se, it’s certainly extremely useful when it comes time to show your accountant what you’ve earned, and for seeing which of your clients still owe you money and what for.
- The invoicing feature can either drop in information from the time-sheet, or if you’re are running a product/service based business on a by sale basis, you can simply type in the description, quantity and amount and voila! Impressive and professional looking invoice is ready for dispatch.
- It has multi-currency support, and I was pleased to see that it offered the ZAR as an option!
- Simply upload your logo, and away you go!
- It works on Windows, Mac AND Linux!
Do not underestimate the kind of time that this wonderful service can save you. If you are able to bill your clients in a snap, it makes getting the money in that much quicker and easier. It’s been tried and tested by me based on photographic and graphic design clients to great success.
Have you heard enough? Want to know more? We’ve linked you up below so you can click through to sign up.
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