I am sure that almost all of us have seen them. Advertisements that we can have others do our shopping for us. Some of those ads are even quite humorous like Walmart’s Supper Bowl ad with the different cars from movies and television. I guess I had never realized that this is actually a big deal, that these shopping services are used.

I went to the grocery store early this morning to do my grocery shopping for the week. As I navigated the fruit and vegetable stands, the dairy section and the aisles of canned goods I realized something. All of the other shoppers in the store with me were store employees. These weren’t employees who were stocking the shelves. These were employees actually shopping, for customers. I did not see anyone else doing their own shopping.

It dawned on me as I was watched these employees look at their scanners, pull an item from the shelf, scan the item and scan the bin they placed it into that all of these employees were performing the task of shopping for others. The same task that I was doing for myself early so that I could avoid a crowded store. For me what used to be a quite morning at the grocery store were I could efficiently pick up what I needed was now a busy morning. These employees were moving around the store, in and out of the aisles just as I was. I now had to navigate among their carts and the boxes and crates of those stocking the shelves.

Even though I had a much smaller llist than I may have normally had it took me a while to get my shopping done in this environment. I was reflecting on that after checking out at the single register that was open. I made my way outside to my car when I looked to the side of the entry and there were three cars, all waiting to have employees load their cars with groceries. Groceries they had not actually shopped for but chosen from a computer screen. Should I be using these shopping services?