Save-On offering to save you a trip

Grocery chain jumping into ever-expanding online food business

Is it the final frontier of grocery-shopping convenience? Save-On-Foods has expanded its online shopping pickup and home-delivery service to Kelowna and Vernon.

Customers can order online at SaveOnFoods.com or by using the Save-On-Foods app. And then they can choose to either pick up their groceries or have them delivered.

For pickup, personal shoppers fill your order and load it into your car at one of the designated online shopping pickup parking stalls in front of the store of your choice.

Same-day pickup is available after 2 p.m. for orders made by 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m. for orders completed by noon. For delivery, a personal shopper shops for you and then a delivery person brings the groceries to your front door.

Orders for delivery have to be made by 10 p.m. for next day delivery during a two-hour window you determine. The minimum order for pick up or delivery is $40. Pickup service is free.

Delivery starts at $5, but the first one is free.

The services are available from the four Save-On-Foods locations in Kelowna on Lakeshore Road, Orchard Plaza, Glenmore and Rutland, and Village Green and Polson in Vernon.

To get started on this new-generation grocery shopping, you have to go to the store's website and register and get a password.

From there, you can start to shop online, virtually going from aisle to aisle filling your electronic cart with produce, dairy, meat, frozen and dried goods.

You can pay with credit or debit card, collect and redeem Save-On Rewards points.

Besides selecting items, you can also give your personal shopper additional instructions, such as bananas not too ripe or meat with a bit of marbling.

You can also allow your personal shopper to make substitutions of similar items if the original item ordered isn’t available.

Once you’ve made your first order, you can use that as a template to add or delete items for future orders.

You’ll get email confirmation of your order with time window for pickup or delivery.