Amazon Fresh vs Shipt: Make your choice!

It goes without saying that I don’t think there is a person out there who loves having to go into busy supermarkets and stores to get their shopping done. With today’s technology, you can virtually have anything shipped to your front door.

Clothes, electronics, tools, even cars can be ordered online and sent directly to your home. Why should it be any different with groceries?

Well, guess what? It’s not!

You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t love having the luxury of just downloading an app, picking out all of your favorite groceries, pressing a button, and then BAM! Have it delivered right to your door, and on the same day no less! It’s in great times we live indeed.

While it is very possible to do this, it’s a rather shocking fact to think that only around a quarter of consumers have actually tried shopping online for their groceries in the last year.

Consider the fact that if you aren’t yet using a grocery delivery service like Amazon Fresh or Shipt, then you are very likely missing out on many of the fantastic conveniences that these services present to you, as the consumer.

So how do you know which one to use? I will review the two grocery delivery goliaths to help you decide!

Shipt

First, let’s take a little detailed look at the grocery shipping company called, Shipt.

Shipt is an American-based home delivery service, owned by the more well-known, Target Corporation.

It was in December of 2017 that Target Corporation announced that they were acquiring Shipt for a calm and cool $550 million.

They also stated that the newly acquired delivery company would operate solely as their independent subsidiary.

The idea behind it was that it was the best for consumers who love shopping at Target.

How much does it cost me?

Shipt offers a fairly reasonable monthly membership for $14. If you’re looking to pay for the whole year and save a few bucks, they also offer up a $99 yearly membership as well.

Just like a lot of companies nowadays, they also proudly offer a 7-day frisk-fee; free trial, in order to let consumers, try out their service. There’s no harm in trying it out free for a week, who knows maybe you’ll love it?

Although it’s not really a deal-breaker, I feel like I should let you know that there is a $7 delivery fee for orders that total up under $35.

Some benefits of using this service:

One of the best features of using Shipt is the fact that you can receive your orders lightning fast! In some cases, your delivery can be dropped off in as little time as an hour.

With Shipt, consumers are able to order groceries from top grocery stores such as Kroger, Harris Teeter, H-E-B, and Meijer. When comparing this feature to Amazon Fresh, you should note that at this time they only deal with Whole Foods.

This may be a bit hard to believe, but Shipt has shoppers in 250+ markets and across 5,000 cities. Impressively, that means that Shipt is located within more cities than Amazon Fresh.

Some things that I’m not to keen on about Shipt.

A pretty big drawback of using Shipt is encountering products that come up as unavailable.

These items then require communication between you and your shopper in order to find a similar substitution.

When comparing this to Amazon Fresh’s inventory, you’ll do well to know that it is being updated in real-time meaning that there is little to no need for substitutions.

As you would guess, with the way that Shipt works, items in the app may be priced differently than what the app says. In the case that the app gave you a lower cost and the store charged more, guess who ends up paying the difference? You, of course.

As I stated earlier, the 7-day free trial is a great way to attract new customers to try out any service.

The drawback here, however, is the fact that you have to contact them via e-mail, a phone call, or by joining a live chat in order to cancel your membership.

Currently, there isn’t an automatic cancellation option anywhere to be found in your account settings.

If you choose to partake in the 7-day free trial and then later find yourself wanting to cancel before your account gets charged, these extra steps will most likely prove to be a pain.

Amazon Fresh

Well, it goes without saying unless you’ve found yourself living under a rock the better part of the last decade, retailing giant, Amazon, should need no introduction.

I can’t say the same about Amazon Fresh though, which actually isn’t even remotely close to being as well known as it’s the parent company.

Amazon Fresh is a grocery delivery and pickup service that’s available to consumers in select cities.

If you’re already an Amazon Prime member, you could enjoy the benefits of this trending new service for an additional monthly membership fee of $14.99. Which is about a dollar more than Shipt.

You need to consider though, it will be more of an addition to your Prime service, which offers a multitude of other things as well. So, think of it as bundling the services together.

Although, as it stands, the service is currently included for FREE to Prime members.

Amazon Fresh customers who are lucky enough to live in select cities can shop effortlessly and easily for groceries, everyday essentials, and other favorites from local shops and restaurants with Amazon Fresh.

The service offers two types of delivery, Attended and Unattended, with Pickup options available in select cities. If you aren’t sure if Amazon Fresh is available in your area, click here to find out more.

How much does it cost me?

As part of getting the service off the ground, Amazon Fresh is currently available for FREE if you have a Prime membership.

This could be a permanent thing or just a trial, but if you’re interested in trying it out, and you already have Prime, or you’ve been thinking about purchasing Amazon Prime, know that this feature is at this time, currently available.

Just like Shipt, there is a delivery fee. The delivery is actually free for orders of at least $35, however, if your order is less than $35 you will find a $10 fee when you opt to choose a 1-hour delivery time, or $6 fee instead if you opt for 2-hour delivery time.

Some benefits of using this service:

As mentioned, if you find yourself already a member of Amazon Prime, then you will already have access using Amazon Fresh. As noted, you will not have to pay an added membership fee to have groceries brought to your doorstep.

The user interface and simplicity of and buying groceries online via this service is much more enjoyable than using Shipt. Overall, it flows better, and if you’re already familiar with Amazon, it’s a pretty similar layout, making it easy to adapt too.

Just like Shipt, delivery times are typically super-fast. Not quite as quick as Shipt though, Amazon Fresh can still deliver in as little as two hours from the time that you actually place your order. Yes, Shipt is faster, but not by a whole lot.

Virtually every single thing that you can get from your local Whole Foods distributor, you can also get from Amazon Fresh.

As mentioned earlier in things I dislike about Shipt, is that they may require you to substitute items in the event of what the item you ordered becomes unavailable. Amazon Fresh is updated constantly, virtually removing this problem.

Packaged foods such as chips and other types of snacks are 10% to 30% cheaper than the prices that Shipt offers.

Amazon Fresh prices actually are pretty competitive with nationwide grocery prices.

You should note however that some higher-risk items, like meats and dairy, are typically priced higher and can ultimately lead to a more expensive bill vs if you had just gone to the store yourself. Overall, a lot of the prices are typically a little lower than Shipt.

Things that I’m not to keen on when it comes down to Amazon Fresh:

The absolute minimum-tiered order in order to avoid a delivery fee is $35. And yes, that’s per order.

As currently noted by Amazon Fresh, they currently deliver to shoppers in Boston, Baltimore, Seattle, Stamford, Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, New York Metro, Northern Virginia, and London. Also, certain parts of California and New Jersey are also included.

You, unfortunately, you can’t use any digital or paper coupons with your grocery order.

When considering which of these services is best for you, first think about availability.

This whole debate for most will be decided in the consideration of one thing. Which one (if either) supports your zip code?

Shipt boasts that they service over 260 cities strong, which is rather impressive. Where (as listed above) you can see the Amazon Fresh doesn’t have close to that reach.

Yes, Amazon is definitely almighty, and a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut, so expect their range to increase in the near future.

The best and only way to know if Amazon Fresh is available for your personal use is to click here to find out.

It goes without saying that Shipt has the best reach available.

What about when it comes down to your favorite retailers? Note that I mentioned that Shipt works alongside companies like Costco, Kroger, and of course Target.

Amazon Fresh currently only works with Whole Foods. To some, this doesn’t really matter, but you should know that Whole Foods offers a discounted section as well, for the budget-savvy consumer.

And the discounts (while they change regularly) are available 365 days out of the year, helping to save you some cash every day.

This comes down to preference. Do you side with the ability to shop your favorite stores, and risk not having something you need and having it subbed out? Or having the price be off a little bit, sticking you with the difference upon delivery.

Or do you side with Amazon’s one provider and the fact they offer discounts and regular pricing, but maybe don’t carry what you need or want?

For me, I side with Amazon, I like the certainty of knowing what I’m spending, and not having any surprises thrown at me last minute. To each and their own though.

While we are on the topic of saving you some cash. It’s no shock that buying groceries can get fairly expensive fairly fast. Because of this, you would want a grocery delivery service that can offer you the best money-saving deals. Right? It makes sense to me.

So, when it comes down to Shipt and Amazon Fresh, which of the two offers up the best occasional promotional codes to use to save money on your order?

Well currently, both of them have pretty fair deals, which you can obtain via email or locate on any of their social media pages, like Facebook or Instagram.

When it comes down to the membership and delivery fees, Shipt offers a monthly membership for $14 or a $99 yearly membership, whereas Amazon Fresh is now completely FREE alongside with your Prime membership.

Currently, there is no longer an additional membership fee (and I don’t think that there later will be for Prime members) to get groceries delivered to right to your very own doorstep.

Consider this another fantastic benefit that comes packaged up with your Prime membership. The membership fee for Amazon Prime is (in my opinion) a rather reasonable $119 per year or $12.99 per month.

If you use Amazon a lot like I do, whether it be for the shipping or Prime Video, it does well to bundle a bunch of services together in order to provide the best experience for their consumers.

Also, the first month of the annual subscription is totally 100% FREE, and you can opt out and decided to cancel anytime.

If you’re a student, you can actually receive a generous price break. Amazon Student accounts get a lot of the exact same benefits as other Prime members, and it’s also 100% FREE for the first six months. (That’s half a year!)

When it comes down to the best bang for your buck, I slightly lean towards Shipt. But listen. If you use Amazon Prime, and it’s available in your area, I would lean towards Amazon.

As for the grocery service itself, Shipt is just a bit better, but the added features available with Amazon Prime are very alluring.

When it comes down to customer service, I can’t say a lot from my own personal experience, as I haven’t had to use either enough to have a strong enough opinion on them.

I will, however, tell you what I’ve heard. Typically, it seems that Shipt doesn’t reach out to the consumer as fast as Amazon does.

As I said, I can’t really give an opinion here, but I have used Amazon Primes customer service before on a few occasions, and it went wonderfully.

If the same standards are behind their Fresh program, I would be led to believe the experience would be about the same.

So, when it comes down to it, which one do I like better?

In total, as just a basic grocery app, Shipt tends to work out a little bit better and be more available for a larger number of consumers.

If you are a Prime member, and Amazon Fresh is available in your area, I would recommend sticking with it.

If you have access to both, use the knowledge I armed you with, and make a decision, it’s totally down to preference.

For me, I like the bundle deal of Amazon better, but only because I’m an avid Prime user, and have been for about 5 years now.