Randall's Food Markets

TL;DR Version:
- Basic/pedestrian online ordering navigation.
- Weekly Ad 'specials' are NEVER in-stock.
- Unlike other Grocery services, they do not sub well, meaning:
If you order an online item which shows to be in-stock, when they sub, they will charge you the sub price, and the subbed item is always greater (sometimes much greater) than the original. Ergo, post a sales price, not have it, have customer order next item up, not have it, sub it with premium-priced item... Hey, made a lot of money in bait & switch sale!

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Really, really long version, but worth the read.:)

I was a Wal-Mart grocery home delivery annual subscriber for almost five years (all of which I regret); and used H-E-B grocery home delivery for almost two years.

Wal-Mart is, unsurprisingly, bottom-of-the-barrel TERRIBLE;... and really, how can it NOT be? You barely have functioning individuals who probably do not want to BE there (sorry if that sounds terrible, but have you been at a Wal-Mart lately?), working IN-STORE for a greedy, penny-driven company that doesn't care about them. Imagine these same individuals trying to handle the time-sensitive coordination of getting perishable items from the store, to your door. It's impossible (and I kind of don't blame them). As for H-E-B, well, you'll just have to read my overly long review about them.:)

This being the case and faced with having to either order from Amazon (which just raised delivery prices and are often out-of-stock), or having to take time from our already busy days to go shop brick & mortar stores, I thought I'd try out Randalls home delivery.

To begin, Randalls offers both monthly and annual subscription plans AND a one-month free trial, plus discount coupons toward your very first order. The plans alone are an excellent reason to opt for Randalls, because H-E-B only offers PAY-per-DELIVERY (which does NOT pan out when they seem to be out of stock on so many items and you have to place orders over and over again). Also, the plans pretty much mirror those of Wal-Mart, without BEING Wal-Mart. WIN!:D

Right off the top, the thing I personally found WONDERFUL about Randalls is that EVERY bowl of fresh-cut WATERMELON we ordered/purchased was simply amazing! Just DELICIOUS! As a measuring point, Wal-Mart's fruits are TRASH (can I say that here)? They're awful. It's as if Wal-Mart buys the castoffs and what other retailers don't want, then turns around and makes the consumer feel special by selling it to them 'on sale', but still overpriced for what it is. H-E-B's are only slightly better than Wal-Mart's, but better, no matter how slightly, IS still better. H-E-B's problem is that they too are very dollar-driven and it is APPARENT that they mix in less-than-stellar fruit, along with better fruit in the fruit bowls they sell. As such, it's a gamble as to just how MUCH 'good' fruit you'll actually receive, and whether that particular buy will be worth it. Randalls, though, ahhhhh. Suffice it to say that out of the numerous bowls of watermelon we ordered, none made it to the next day. :D YUM!

In addition to the fantastic watermelon, Randalls also made sure that ALL our groceries were packaged excellently and that they arrived at perfect temperatures! So, not only was our fruit received at a perfect temperature, but our milk was COLD! On our first order, the beef was nice and red, the wings smelled great, the cookie dough was chilled, and oh - the Kaiser rolls seemed newly-baked and delicious and lasted a while.

All-in-all, pretty great, right? Well, mostly.

Now, on to the not-so-great.

Back to fruit for just a second. While (for the last time, I promise), their watermelon was something to write about, BOTH the strawberries and cut cantaloupe were NOT. The bowls of fresh-cut cantaloupe and the packages of strawberries we received boasted of SUCH AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL colors that our mouths watered upon seeing them (can you tell we love fruit)? Lol. They were all, however, inedible and went into the trash. They were rock hard and not at ALL sweet. Not even the dogs wanted to eat them although I did try sneaking some tiny pieces into their food before we opted to just throw it all away (around a good $24's worth too. SAD). What weirded me out a bit, was wondering HOW that fruit could be so GORGEOUSLY colored, and taste so bad? Is fruit being colored now, or 'engineered' to look like these did? Seriously, color and taste in no way matched.

Another issue I found is that Randalls online coding is maybe(?) fined-tuned toward their phone App. (can't say for sure as I have not tried it), but on a laptop screen, it is not the best. Both, product images and text are way too small, and the navigation is just... poor. The Search function is not the greatest, although not poor, but probably loses them some sales because it does not pick up all options for a search query. For example, "seedless watermelon" pulls up only whole watermelons (and an eggplant for some reason - lol), not cut watermelon in bowls (possibly because the ones in bowls are not seedless). A search for "gallon water" pulled up two FEWER gallons of water options than did just "water". There were other such instances too, although I don't remember all to list (and I'm already writing a book instead of a review). So, a minor issue, but one which should be corrected because it HELPS us consumers in choosing what we want, without WASTING PRECIOUS TIME in having to correct or play with our search terms.

Their Substitution 'picker' is also a bit pedestrian. While thankful that they even have it, it needs to be perfected or just done away with. In it, they give you the option to choose a substitution in case something you order is out of stock, but there are only a couple of sub options for each item - most of the time being nothing you would choose to sub with. Their accompanying "Notes" section limits you to too few characters. They should do away with the sub picker and INCREASE the character limit in their Notes section. In fact, that is how H-E-B does it.

THE MEAT OF THE MATTER:
In as far as substitutions, unlike both Wal-Mart or H-E-B, the item they substitute an out-of-stock item with, is billed/charged at the regular price, instead of at the price which you thought you'd pay for the item you originally chose. This, to me, is SUCH a gray area, especially BECAUSE they seldom have the products listed on their weekly ads. In as such, who is to say it is not purposefully structured to lure you in with $.50-cent mangos or $1.98 Campari tomatoes, only to then send you and sell you their $2.00 mangoes and $.99-cent Roma Tomatoes (Campari tomatoes you are NOT, Sir Roma!). As you can see by my example, it could work either way, but still, the price model that the other stores offer seems much "cleaner" in that YOU order an item that THEY say IS in stock, and if and when it proves NOT to be in stock, it is THEIR 'duty' to replace it with a comparable item at the LESSER cost, being that which you chose the original for (because choosing an item very many times involves PRICE), or the price of the substitution - whichever is lower.

On our first and second orders, some marinated chicken wings were not only half out-of-stock, but on the second order, a few tasted like CLOROX or some other cleaning agent (I am NOT kidding and I am guessing someone cleaned the area they cut them on, or it spilled into the marinating bowls). Something was really 'off' with them.

On our third order, all the beef product was out of stock (like in cart, ordered, not delivered out-of-stock). Not TOO bad for me, as I am trying to eat more ethically, but a problem for my husband. /Sigh

On the last of our orders with them (meaning VERY LAST - as we will not be ordering from them again), we ordered three trays of meat which were to average $26. Now, I have shopped DELIVERY a LONG time, so I knew they would be heavier than estimated for or averaged, so I calculated that in total the meat alone would be along the lines of $32-$40. I kid you not, that when they arrived, I was charged $66.08 for the same meat! When I called to inquire on what had happened, not ONLY did anyone not "know", but the Albertson's (parent company) CSR argued that it was their pricing and sub procedures that accounted for the difference in price. REALLY? Soooo, they can charge anything?

LASTLY, apparently, Randalls uses (ugh) DOORDASH (double ugh) to deliver. Now, I am okay with Doordash drivers when they're delivering food my hubby and I have ordered ON Doordash, but for grocery deliveries THEY ARE THE ABSOLUTE WORST. Wal-Mart uses Doordash for their grocery delivery - enough said. Nope, NOT enough said. I cannot EVEN begin to tell you the times I had to go running up and down our block to see what neighbor's door our Wal-Mart groceries had been left at, only to realize that some of those times, the driver had run away with our groceries or left them somewhere near our garage (which is on the other side of our house), once at the curb, and once on our driveway. LOL! Now, I am not sure WHY (being that I'm pretty certain drivers are chosen from the same local pool of our city's drivers), but what H-E-B absolutely EXCELS at, is that they use "FAVOR" delivery drivers, and they are the BEST! The first time I ordered through Randalls, I left a note to please place our groceries behind a gate we have that is about 2' or 3' from our front door. Well, this 'genius' (Randalls' Doordash driver) leaves the groceries at the gate LINE (not even 'behind gate') and could not be bothered to leave them 10-inches over, against the FRONT door... BEYOND that, he leaves the gate fully OPEN (and of course, how could he close it when there were - ahem - GROCERIES in the way? The same exact thing happened the second time (grocery bags left half out of the gate, and the gate left open); the third time, everything was left OUTSIDE of the gate. HOW can one company's drivers (Favor) do it right, but not another's (Doordash)? It's MIND-BOGGLING (and not in a good way). On our last order it was raining, and I actually kind of felt bad for the guy until he phoned and hinted that he'd prefer someone to come get the bags from his car. LOL! What? He did not close the gate behind him either. :)