One option is to order online but pick up at the store.
At least you reduce the time spent at the supermarket and do your shopping at a more convenient time for you, even if this means in the middle of the night.
Your order is filled by and from the store designated to serve your area, not from a centralized warehouse. If an item you want is not in stock at that store, youâre out of luck. But you wonât know until after you have submitted your order and someone calls to tell you the item is out of stock or not carried by âyourâ store.
Thatâs what happened to me last week. When I spoke with the customer service person to ask how I could find out about the status of a product before placing an order, I was told that there is no way.
What a joke.
The service could be so much better!
It absolutely defeats the purpose of eshopping. I canât believe their software is so lame.
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Iâve experienced this kind of logistics in Canada from MEC and their online store â delivery estimates based on -if- the store nearest you has stock, otherwise itâs a crap shoot. Of course it wasnât clearly stated as such at the time.
But Iâm floored that Carrefour is offering service in English. This must be a first for Taiwan.
If they must do it by store inventory nearest you, then at least have a function where you input your postal code and then the site shows what is and is not available for delivery to you. That makes sense, does it not?
That would require the stores to keep track of their inventory in real time. Theyâd have to connect a store specific database feed to the central ordering site.
Additionally, it would have remove items when bought at the check out counter and add them when received in the store.
Well, most of stores already have this kind of system implemented for stock management. I donât think itâd be that hard to connect it all together
Except that this is Taiwan. I cannot see a cheap ass Taiwanese boss spending money on this.
But Carrefour is not a Taiwan company. I believe itâs French?
And a store chain of that size, I guarantee they have electronic, real-time tracking of their inventory.
It may be French, but itâs under taiwanese management here. Like costco is American, but managed locally. It absorbs local characteristics.
If they were going to allow online ordering with delivery from local stores and could connect local inventory to their web site, why didnt they do so in the first place?
Either they lack the ability or they didnât want to spend money to do so. Likely any inventory database is currently local to the store.
So I contacted Carrefour today and asked about this âin or out of stock in a store nearest youâ problem. They responded and said it is not true. They said they would deliver all products on their site as long as the item is in stock somewhere.
I find this hard to believe. Letâs say for pretend sake that I want a box of Lucky Charms cereal. Letâs imagine no stores in Norther Taiwan have it in stock. There is only one store that has one box and that store is all the way down in Kaohsiung. I hardly think they would hunt that one box down and ship it all the way up to Taipei.
Iâm going to test the system. I know for a fact that all of the Carrefour stores near me do not have Lucky Charms. Iâve looked. I will order a couple boxes and see if I get them.
I will post back here my experimentâs results.
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This just makes me want to have Lucky CharmsâŚ
Got an email from Carrefour today about my order. They are shipping it from HuaLian! I live in New Taipei City, so that is odd.
Shipping location: Hua Lian Store
I wonder if the last box of Lucky Charms is in HuaLian.
Itâs scheduled for a morning delivery tomorrow. We shall see.
For those of you following, I promised to keep you updated.
2 boxes have been confirmed shipped by Taiwan Pelican Express Co., Ltd. from the store in HuaLian. Destination: New Taipei City.
The online package slip states all items I ordered, including the Lucky Charms, are in the boxes.
Sounds like they make good on their adverts. Waiting for delivery.
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Well, half of my order showed upâŚthe frozen half. I have no idea where the box of other things is.
The frozen foods were in one soggy cardboard box and one item had been crushed.
Here is a photo.
The delivery time for both boxes was between 9am and 2pm today. It is now 2:10pm.
Going to call Carrefour in a half hour to find out where my other box is.
You mentioned you can even search for imported things by country but I have yet to see this function. It is hard finding certain products. How do you search for imported goods?
I know that the store in Xindian sells Mac n Cheese occasionally but I donât see that available on there website but I love seeing your picture of products. My kids will be happy to know that they have Eggos.
Iâve seen imported Kraft Mac n Cheese at the Taoyuan Carrefour. But that was 2 months ago. Last time I was there a week ago, they were no longer selling it.
Imported goods are not long term it seems. Kind of by luck. Their online site does not show mac n cheese.
To search by country for imported goods, scroll down until you see this:
Then you can pick a country. The country bar scrolls left and right also.
Look everywhere though. Iâve found American goods in the British section.
Were they still frozen? The soggy box would indicate something had melted.
Weird. When I ordered mine, all the frozen stuff was kept in a cold-storage in a truck. The rest as in boxes.