I Ran Into This Big Problem When I Did Whole Foods Grocery Pickup

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When I tried to pick up my groceries the other day, the Amazon servers were down so I couldn’t get my food. Here’s what happened. 

A few weeks ago, I put together a Whole Foods pickup order. I’ve done this many times before.

It is much more convenient to pick up the food than to go into the store. I get cash back on my credit card for Whole Foods purchases, so that’s a big benefit. And I end up saving money on my purchases when I do grocery pickup since I’m not tempted by all the goodies on the store shelves.

My order had 72 items in it that day, and I was eager to get it loaded in the car and head home. Unfortunately, when I arrived, there was a big problem.

A server issue meant my groceries were not available

On the day that I went to pick up my groceries, it just so happened that Amazon’s servers had gone down. And, because of the way Whole Foods pickup works, this created a few big issues.

The first problem was that the store was not notified I had checked in on my phone app — but I was not told that. So, I ended up sitting in the grocery store parking lot in a pickup spot for about 15 minutes. Finally, a store clerk came out to talk to me because the customer parked next to me had gone in to ask what was going on after waiting for a half-hour in the parking lot.

The next problem was that the store was unable to determine which bags were mine because the servers were down. Which meant that while my groceries were sitting in the pickup area, there was no way to distinguish mine — or anyone else’s. So, the store simply could not give us our groceries.

Not only that, but the store could not tell us when the servers would be back online. And if they didn’t go back on that day, all the food would end up having to just be put back on the shelves. This meant I was left without my 72 items and faced a choice about whether I should go in and try to shop for all of them (without a printed shopping list) or hope the servers came back on and I could come back later to get my groceries.

Fortunately, I was able to go in to talk to customer service and while I was waiting to try to figure out what was going on, someone figured out how to manually match up the bags and get me my groceries. But, this only worked because it was late in the day and there weren’t many pickup orders left. Had I been earlier, I’d have had to leave without my groceries or shop for them all again.

Grocery pickup (and delivery) can present some risks

The fact is, when you rely on technology, there is an increased chance of problems. This doesn’t mean that grocery pickup isn’t worth using. You just have to be prepared for some potential snafus and have a back-up plan if technology lets you down.

For me, personally, I’ll no longer be doing pickup for groceries I need that very night — and I’ll also have a list with me as backup just in case things don’t work out and I end up having to do my shopping myself.

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The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Christy Bieber has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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