Mercato delivery from which store?
Handyâs Market in Burbank.
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Hereâs a summary of our 2 experiences w/ Ralphs via Instacart.
For the first order, I didnât realize that, if you donât select no-substitution, the shopper will make decisions for you that are sometimes not what you consider comparable (e.g., substituting your order for oil packed tuna w/ âlightâ tuna). Delivery only took a few hrs (this was at the start of the isolation).
Second order was more successful. Shopper contacted us when she started collecting the items and would send us photos of possible substitutions! (we had selected the âno substitutionsâ for all items) Despite being told over the weekend (when we had originally placed the order) that the toilet paper we had selected wasnât available, the shopper was able to find another brand. For some reason, I hadnât realized that the shopping would be âliveâ (perhaps this was mentioned above; Iâm too lazy to review). If I had known, I certainly wouldâve given a bigger tip.
We had placed the order on Sunday (I think), but the shopping and delivery took place today. We were given a one-hour window to select for delivery, and the shopper adhered to this in terms of contacting us during shopping and for final delivery.
Weâre pretty happy w/ the service.
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You can go into your order ex-post and modify the tip. I did - I didnât order toilet paper but my shopper notified me that there was some and did I want any. Was pretty happy about that!
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Titled: Mercato, I Knew It Was Too Good To Be True
I waited to see if Mercato would respond to my reply email before posting a review, but nopeâŚ
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Weâre trying to heed the pleas to âstay-at-home!â Mercato seemed too good to be true, especially during the lockdown (ability to order from multiple shops and have it delivered together by one company in one day).
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To make it simple for the driver and more âgreenâ I ordered everything from shops at one location - Fairfax Farmers Market on 3/26
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The advertised 1-day turned into 7-days at checkout. Thatâs fine as weâre in difficult times, it was multiple shops, and Iâd already done some shopping before hell broke loose.
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On the 4/2 due date you can imagine we were more than ready for our delivery. Hereâs what went downâŚ
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M. Marcel called needing to quickly replace an out-of-stock item but said the order was otherwise ready for pickup. Cool.
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The Huntington Meats & Marconda orders were ready for pickup. Great.
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Farm Fresh or Mercato cancelled our Farm Fresh order that morning with no explanation.
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Finally, only the Marconda order arrived as scheduled.
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On 4/3 after failed attempts at contacting Mercato I called Huntington & M. Marcel, who discovered Mercato never picked-up. They ended up using one of MMâs drivers to deliver both orders, no charge. Please note: I added a big tip at checkout, so the Mercato driver received the full tip for delivering only a small portion of the delivery.
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To add insult to injury - Mercato contacted me a couple days later by email seemingly concerned and wanting to know the exact problem. When I listed the issues they never replied and instead charged us $96 for an annual membership (so much for the free-trial-offer) AND you still need to make a minimum order from each shop to avoid delivery fees⌠and donât forget that tip!
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In conclusion M Marcel & Huntington saved the day by cooperating with each other and getting us our food. I suggested that FM vendors get together and implement an in-house delivery service. Especially, since Mercato appears to have used one of the dreaded 3rd party delivery apps, anyway.
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I donât know if this is a one-time glitch (hoping) or growing pains or Mercato canât provide the service they offer. I havenât decided wether or not Iâm going use them again (definitely not for multiple shops) or cancel the membership. Weâre fully stocked right now and Iâll decide when weâre running low on provisions.
Happy Healthy Food Seeking!
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As it stands Yummy Market (https://www.yummy.com/) is our go to for grocery deliveries (no in-store pickup at the moment). They have all the conventional grocery store staples and a deli, liquor, plus gourmet & health-food items (organics, free-range, cheeses, vegan, gf, etc). Whatâs great is they have their own vans & drivers and delivery generally arrives within an hour. Itâs convenience-store-pricey, but if you join the club @ $20 per month you get unlimited delivery, lots of $10-off coupons and multiple households can use the membership (think friends, family & neighbors). Note: right now, they can be out-of-stock on certain items like other stores and a couple times a day they shutdown for a bit to re-stock and give the drivers time to regroup, but all-in-all theyâre the fastest, friendliest and most efficient ticket around.
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I order through the Ralphs website. AFAIK, the personal shoppers that actually deliver the food work for Instacart. Service has been less than satisfactory, although I have only been charged for the food I actually received.
My next to the last order took five days of clicking on attempting to get a delivery date and time. When I fianlly got one, it was an additional five days later.
My last order took three days of clicking (hooray, an improvement), and again the actual date was another five days later. I only received about half my order. I know Instacart is obviously swamped with business, but millions of unemployed people are available for hire.
The closest Whole Foods is near Ventura and Sepulveda (I live near Victory and Woodman), so I never even tried to order from them.
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Good to know about Yummy which I have never previously used. It says on the website that you can pickup. âYes, you can order for pick up by using our app: Yummy.comâ Is that inaccurate?
They donât have much that I would want and are out of stock on a lot of things, but I did spot La Croix water in stock so will definitely give Yummy a try for my next order of La Croix. If you can pick up or actually get a delivery date, thatâs huge.
So far Iâm happy with Mercato from one store, a butcher shop where employees bag up the orders, so the delivery person doesnât have to know anything. Iâve placed three orders and they all came the same day.
Weâll see what happens with the grocery store order I placed last Tuesday to be delivered this Tuesday (first available date). That store no longer appears in their list, so I wonât be surprised if the order is cancelled.
Theyâre facing a level of growth that no company could manage smoothly.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mercato-gets-independent-grocers-online-113000203.html
Mercato.comâs online grocery platform is growing by about 50 stores a day, resulting in a 5,000% spike in consumer orders over the past month.
Orders are fulfilled by DoorDash, or at least theyâre the âpreferredâ service.
That story also mentions online grocery services Freshop (a smartphone app) and Rosie. Also GrocerKey, but I canât find a consumer portal for them.
Hi @Omotesando -
We shop at the Mid-City location. They could very well be open for pickups. For the past few weeks the store has been locked to walk-ins and nobody answers the phone, so we didnât think of curbside. Also, Iâve been ordering on the website for so long that I forget about the App.
As for delivery date or time - itâs same-day service but they have a new caveat banner that says to give them 2 hours, but ours always arrives between 30-60 minutes.
They are small and do runout of the same things other markets do, right now, but they restock and have saved us (especially me as the cook) from standing in line at grocery stores. I havenât been inside Ralphs in a month.
I Love Yummy.
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Yah, Iâm not throwing in the towel with Mercato yet, but until the C19 cloud lifts Iâm not doing big or multiple store orders thru them. Especially when we have Yummy Market in an hour. And I do think they owe us an incentive for the headache (postmates will automatically take a % off). I didnât even mention the double charging on a few items (cleared up pretty quickly). It was kind of a headache and as my husband says âThe juice wasnât worth the squeeze.â
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Got a quick resupply of Bounty paper towels from the CC Pico location for pickup in half an hour after ordering in the afternoon two weeks back. Every other big and small neighborhood or ethnic store had kept selling out.
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I got the Mercato order I placed a week ago. They were out of challah, bread flour, purple garlic, and jasmine rice, gave me only one dozen eggs instead of two, and charged me only for what I received. Missing items still appeared on the invoice attached to the bags, which was confusing.
Only downside is that the store is no longer available to order from.
Big plus over Instacart:
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I was supposed to receive an order from Mercato last Friday. I got a text that my delivery was complete, but there was nothing at my front door. I texted the number I had received the original text from asked where was my delivery. Got no answer. I began looking at neighborsâ front porches and sure enough it was mis-delivered a few doors down from me. Later on I got an email from Mercato asking me to review the delivery. I gave them a poor rating and explained why. Never heard back from them yet.
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That has happened to me with frequency for Amazon packages pre-pandemic (although thankfully not during the pandemic). Iâve also had that problem through the years with various delivery services. I think Mercato uses DoorDashâs network for delivery so itâs just a matter that you happened to get a careless delivery person from the ranks of the independent contractors who do deliveries.
Yikes! I was hoping to place an order from some of the Farmeres Market grocers via Mercato this week as Iâm starting to run low on stuffâŚbut now Iâm thinking I may just head over to the Market on Sunday morning when itâs nice and quiet and do a fast run through the place. I probably need to get out of my place and see some daylight anywaysâŚ
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Me too. Iâll probably call a couple places to pre-order.
@Omotesando & @JeffOC - I actually donât think itâs common or acceptable to search for your delivered items at your neighbors - provided you give them the right address and delivery instructions. Our accounts specify the entrance is downstairs to the back of the house, meaning itâs not easy. We havenât had a problem from Amazon, Yummy or Chewy and on delivery services like Postmates & Mercato I reiterate when they send notice of pending delivery. Deliverers also have customer phone numbers. Mixups are due to carelessness, period. 
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They missed a few places:
Restaurant Depot
Newport Meat
And if theyâre including wholesale places that always sold to the public:
Universal Seafood
Port Town Foods
LAX-C
Daniels Western Meat Packers (via @Jase)
Does anybody know if Yokoâs Seafood sells to the public? Itâs been on my list a while since they are unusual in publicly posting their prices (which I think are priced well enough to be considered wholesale but Iâm no seafood expert).
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