Indistinguishable from Jesse

I eat in my room a lot, but I don't drive and I don't like carrying heavy bags of groceries 2 miles. Instead of begging for rides, I order from vons.com. They deliver groceries to my dorm room. I've been using vons.com for a year, but most Mudd students don't know about it.

The site's "Favorites" feature makes it possible to order very quickly if you buy the same things each time. Many items have photos, so lists are easy to scan.

The minimum order is $50 and the normal delivery fee is $10. $10 is worth it for the time I save by not begging people for rides, riding to Vons, walking around the store to find the groceries I want, waiting in line at checkout, waiting for the people I rode with to finish, riding back, and carrying bags of groceries to my room in several trips. Orders over $150 have free delivery, but my orders aren't that large.

When you check out, you have to specify a 2-hour delivery window when you know you will be in your room.

My complaints about the site:

• The front page doesn't mention the $10 delivery fee.
• At 800x600, the "main" frame is tiny and I have to scroll a lot.
• I have to enter my credit card information for each order.
• The site isn't sure whether it's Vons or Safeway. (They're the same company. The store is called Vons in southern California and is called Safeway elsewhere.)

Tips for Mudd students:

• If you live in South, give your location as "South Dorm", not "Marks Hall". Many Mudders don't know where "Marks Hall" is, and there is also a "Marks Hall" at CMC.
• Give the address of your dorm (below), not your mailing address (340 E Foothill). I don't know if this is necessary, but it's what I tried first, and it worked for me. (Source for addresses: Dean Guy, "Cable Television" e-mail to all Mudd students, Sept. 2002.)

  Dorm	Address
  Garrett House	495 East 12th Street
  Atwood	1200 North Mills Avenue
  Case	560 East Foothill
  Linde	550 East Foothill
  South	400 East Foothill
  East	445 East 12th Street
  North	440 East Foothill
  West	425 East 12th Street

  (More addresses -- link added 2003-09-23)

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2003 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Mudd. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.