PC OPTIMUM, Lets share deals, offers, info

[ilovetotravel1977]

It's Wednesday! Time to save your four offers!

 

[tinkerone]

Loblaws has a great offer for PC Optimum on their tuna. The NN is $1 but with your PC card it is only .69 cents. I popped in this morning and picked some up, DH likes it for sandwiches.

 

[bankr63]

Note that Loblaws has now shortened the order closing time so you have 24 more hours to setup your order before it's locked in. The order fee has risen to $5, but only applies to weekend orders apparently (they state it as "popular timeslots" - but scrolling through the calendar that seems to mean Saturday and Sunday at any time). It continues to be waved for non-popular (weekday) orders.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Yeah, starting in June, our Fortinos has the $5.00 charge on weekends, too. I wonder how quickly all the pick ups will dry up when there's a charge again.

 

[dancin Disney style]

Note that Loblaws has now shortened the order closing time so you have 24 more hours to setup your order before it's locked in. The order fee has risen to $5, but only applies to weekend orders apparently (they state it as "popular timeslots" - but scrolling through the calendar that seems to mean Saturday and Sunday at any time). It continues to be waved for non-popular (weekday) orders.

DD and I were discussing this. She's not surprised that this is what they have done. According to the info she had the fees vary from store to store and day/time. People on socials are losing their minds over this. It makes me laugh because instead of dropping the fee back in March they should have just left it in place. It was only $3.

 

[Silvermist999]

Yeah, starting in June, our Fortinos has the $5.00 charge on weekends, too. I wonder how quickly all the pick ups will dry up when there's a charge again.

Yes, I noticed this change also. I did get an email last week from Loblaws alluding to normal store hours returning along with charges resuming soon for “popular” pickup times.

ETA: just checked on PC Express and the $3 charge is starting up at my RCSS on Thursday June 11th!! Thursday’s are my regular pickup day. Need to book my spot for earlier that week now.

 

[FigmentSpark]

That's right. I thought it was cheaper before. I think they used this as an opportunity to promote their pick up service. Now that people like it (remembe all those surveys we filled out?), they're going to start charging and they've upped the charge, which was probably always the plan.

 

[bankr63]

$5 strikes me as a small price to pay to protect your health and it is easily avoided right now by picking a different day and time. I would rather spend the $5 and sit in my air conditioned car than swelter in line waiting to get into the store on a Saturday.

 

[kitntrip]

In my local superstore (north Edmonton) pick up fee was $3 except during dinner hours and weekends, it went to $5.

 

[scrappinginontario]

At our Superstore in ON, fees start being charged Sat, Jun 6th. From what I can tell:

Sat and Sun $5.00 fee
Mon through Wed - no fee
Thurs and Fri $3.00 fee

Also, I can choose a pickup time any of the next 14 days. The closer the window, the later in the day but I like it as I no longer need to be ordering groceries for 2 weeks at a time! Now I keep filling my online cart and can place my order for pick-up in a reasonable time.

Appreciate this program and how they have adapted to current shopping preferences.

 

[dancin Disney style]

That's right. I thought it was cheaper before. I think they used this as an opportunity to promote their pick up service. Now that people like it (remembe all those surveys we filled out?), they're going to start charging and they've upped the charge, which was probably always the plan.

From the time they started charging the fee it has been $3. No need to promote it as it was busy pretty much from day one. Within the first 4-5 months of the program they expanded in store space, parking pick up and staff. There was a slight down turn when Walmart started theirs up but it very quickly bounced back to higher than before. I will disagree that they had always been planning to up the fee. Program expansion has been the goal. They have added offsite pick up boxes (ie: Go stations) and had been planning to further develop that side.

 

[bankr63]

No need to promote it as it was busy pretty much from day one.

I think the success was very store specific. It really never caught on at our large suburban store until COVID. There were 4 spots for pickup, I only once ever saw a car in there. The delivery pen sometimes might have one or two bins waiting for pickup at most. Now they have expanded to 12 parking spots and they are much more well used (although I have experience at most 6 cars at a time).

It might be interesting to see how the locker kiosks would do at the Ottawa Rapid Transit stations. My local store is at the eastern terminus of the line.

 

[scrappinginontario]

While I have been more thank thankful for PC Express during this time, I also really miss grocery shopping. Choosing what I want. Not needing to create meals around 'grocery roulette' depending on what i get in our orders.

I will use it occasionally but not often. That being said my SIL has used a grocery pickup service for years and loves it. Each person is different.

 

[hdrolfe]

I have used Walmart pick up occasionally in the past, usually when I need to get stuff and don't really have time to shop myself. I have not used it at all during this time because it was so hard to get a time for pickup. I do remember getting multiple offers for waiving the fee if I would try out the PC service, that I never took advantage of. I was worried at the start of this, about being out in public, but have become more confident about it in the past few weeks. I still try and stick to one store whenever possible. I wear a mask, avoid other people in the aisle's, do my part I guess.

 

[Silvermist999]

I also appreciate not having to go instore unless I absolutely have to. I stopped doing Walmart pick ups, but have continued with my PC Express pickups. I stopped choosing the first time slot of the day (was 8-9am) because I encountered so many issues with getting my order at that time with a reasonable wait in the parking spot, likely due to staffing issues etc so early in the morning.

However, yesterday morning I went to pick up my RCSS order, I had the 10-11am slot and when I showed up all of the pickup parking spots were full, a couple were blocked off so I had to park off side until someone left. They were busy repaving that entire section of the parking lot (couldn’t they do that after hours? guess not). So I ended up sitting in my car for over half an hour waiting for my order. Luckily it wasn’t a hot day, I hate to have the car running just for the A/C, plus I wasn’t about to open the window and breathe in the toxic fumes from the pavers. And I see people walking directly into the store, with no lineups outside at all. So the pickup can be convenient but it has been far from perfect for me.

 

[Debbie]

While I have been more thank thankful for PC Express during this time, I also really miss grocery shopping. Choosing what I want. Not needing to create meals around 'grocery roulette' depending on what i get in our orders.

I will use it occasionally but not often. That being said my SIL has used a grocery pickup service for years and loves it. Each person is different.

I started using PC Express a couple of months before COVID19, late on Saturday afternoons. We live outside the city and I really liked being able to drop DH off at Church, get to No Frills, pack the car, run to the LCBO for a quick pick-up, and then pick up my online M&M order. I was able to get back to pick up DH in 45/50 minutes easy. We tend to use our local independent or Foodland to pick up the missing items. At the time I began, I had 3 free months of PC Express pick up. The $3/$5 pick up fee is worth it for me. And I will likely continue to use the service.

 

[FigmentSpark]

$5 strikes me as a small price to pay to protect your health and it is easily avoided right now by picking a different day and time. I would rather spend the $5 and sit in my air conditioned car than swelter in line waiting to get into the store on a Saturday.

That's $20-$25 a month if you go once a week.

My problem is with a 2 day close of my shop, I have to go in anyway. So I do the pick up, see what's missing and go in the store. I might as well just go in, especially if it's costing me $5 to get the online groceries. Also, when I go in, I'm usually able to get the stuff they missed. I don't know how they missed it, but maybe it was picked before restocking happened.

I did notice today that the store (at 10am) was much busier than last week at 10am. I am wondering if people are just getting tired of not being out and are going in to shop. I've even seen a few moms with little kids in tow, so obviously, they are confident that it's safe. That said, we are up 5 new cases today in our area.

 

[Mickey&JoshNut]

I just checked our local Fortinos and the pick up fee is waived for weekdays - the weekend pick up times are now $5. I am glad I am now working from home because I can pick up my groceries during the week - the grocery store is only around the block from our home so I can be back and unpacked in less than 30 minutes. As someone with a compromised immune system who lives with a senior, I will continue to use the pick up service, even if the $5 fee applies to the weekday pick ups.

 

[Debbie]

I just checked No Frills. No fee during the week, but the $3.00 fee is applied on Saturday and Sunday. Superstore, Loblaw and Value Mart are all $5.00. Guess it is one time it is good to be cheap.

 

[dancin Disney style]

I think the success was very store specific. It really never caught on at our large suburban store until COVID. There were 4 spots for pickup, I only once ever saw a car in there. The delivery pen sometimes might have one or two bins waiting for pickup at most. Now they have expanded to 12 parking spots and they are much more well used (although I have experience at most 6 cars at a time).

It might be interesting to see how the locker kiosks would do at the Ottawa Rapid Transit stations. My local store is at the eastern terminus of the line.

I agree...anything is going to be regional. Corp looks at it on the whole and pre Covid it was very successful. My closest store started out with 4 parking spots and within 2 months of the launch they added 4 more, then a few months after that 2 more. I rarely saw any cars parked there so I asked DD....she said they needed the spots and it was going like gang busters. Similar situation with their work space....I never saw much activity in there. Again, DD said nope, they are working like crazy. Most stores have storage space behind closed doors so customers were never going to see much.....which was the plan.

From the first time I saw the lockers at the Go station I was interested. DD has them in the office (of course) and said everyone uses them. Maybe they feel obligated, IDK, but I'm sure I would be if it was in my workplace. They even have wagons to load everything in to take to the car....total necessity though, the parking area is so large they also have a shuttle service.