We all know FoodPanda and UberEats for restaurants, but several grocery stores offer delivery as well. FocusTaiwan wrote a good article about it. I’ve tried several of these and others (because I was lazy long before the outbreak) so I’ll add my experience. Please fill in the blanks with yours or places I’ve missed. One issue, for pandemic prevention, many of these are not accepting cash on delivery.
Carrefour
https://online.carrefour.com.tw/us/
Carrefour is the best of all of them, and the cheapest overall. The site is easy to use, and they have an English language option so you don’t foul up an order or registration. You should still put your address in Chinese as well as instructions to drivers. The English translations of products are hit and miss, so if you can’t find something switch to Chinese.
Normally, they accept COD, but now only credit cards, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, JkoPay, and Line Pay. Deliveries over 899 are shipped free.
In this second week of L3, my last order was delayed 4 days. Their texts say 3-5. Normally you can choose a period of time to ship, now it says “Anytime”. Finding a day for shipping is difficult. You’ll get a lot of errors saying you can’t place an order for that day, but you can still place an order (this may be fixed by now). If you do click to checkout and it says the max number of orders for your chosen day, you have to keep choosing different days until you find one with an empty slot. Plan in advance and place an order for each week for things you need. If every day is full, the furthest possible day will be added after midnight. Get it first.
Carrefour also has 2 hour (expect same day now) delivery on some products, but only in areas near the hypermarts. You can also order some Carrefour products through UberEats in a wider area with delivery in about 2 hours. FoodPanda delivers for them as well.
A Mart is actually part of the Friday conglomerate. The direct link for just A Mart is here:
Or all of Friday, which includes City Super:
I tried this, but didn’t place an order. It’s not as convenient as frozen and cold items and everything else are shipped separately, so it’s harder to get to up to the free shipping total, especially when so much is out of stock. They do offer full contain loads (FCL, buying in bulk) to save money. Carrefour normally does, but has removed this option recently.
A Mart/Friday accepts credit cards, ATM transfer, Line Pay, and whatever HappyGoPay is.
A Mart/Friday is the most expensive I’ve found for most products.
FoodPanda delivers A Mart products. Uber Eats delivers from City Super, but little is available.
PXMart
I haven’t tried it, but they seem to have fewer products. No soda. I didn’t register so I don’t know about payment or free shipping.
RT Mart:
Seems high priced. Have not ordered from yet because much of what I want is out of stock. Free shipping over 1000. Apparently they only take credit cards, but that might depend on what you order.
UberEats delivers RT Mart products.
Costco:
You know it or you don’t. Cathay United Bank credit card or you’re out of luck.
This was mentioned in the FocusTaiwan article. I didn’t try it, but it looks like you can get products in bulk cheap, or for small amounts expensively. Good if you have a freezer.
Momo
Yeah, they have food too. Mostly dry goods. The only refrigerated think I saw was milk direct from the manufacturer. Products ship either from their warehouse or direct from the manufacturer, so you may get multiple shipments spread out over days, but all orders count towards free shipping. At most, the free shipping tier is only $490. You can have some things sent to an iMailbox if you have one near and want total non-contact with a human. They also ship some products to convenience stores.
Momo accepts credit cards, ATM, Line Pay, Google/Apple Pay, and EasyWallet.
PChome 24h
https://24h.pchome.com.tw/sign/food.htm
PC Home 24H and the original are both dinosaurs, but 24h was the fastest shipping I’ve got since L3 started. It wasn’t the next day, though, it was about 3 days later. They have almost all grocery products. They ship about like Momo, different warehouses, some things direct from the manufacturer, so many things are shipped separately. Depending on the product, they accept credit cards, Line Pay, and ATM, Google/Apple/Samsung/Taiwan Pay, Jko, and EasyWallet.
Shopee, Rakutan, Ruten, Momo Mall, Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Auctions (it won’t die)
Shopee has it’s own food warehouse (Rakutan might) and you can also buy from individual sellers on all. Some sellers have almost as many products as grocery stores. Some offer free shipping if you spend a certain amount. Home shipping is usually more expensive, especially if you order cold/frozen products. Payment options vary. All do convenience store shipping COD on some orders. Shopee, Ruten, Rakutan, Yahoo Shopping all accept ATM depending on the seller. Yahoo Shopping accepts Line Pay, Rakutan does for some sellers. I haven’t used Momo Mall ever, or Yahoo Auctions since 2005.
FoodPanda, UberEats:
Either may deliver Carrefour, RT-Mart, and A Mart products depending on the area. UberEats also delivers from Hi-Life. FoodPanda has their own food warehouse in some areas, PandaMart, which is a cheaper option than some grocery stores delivered through FP. They also deliver FamilyMart and 7-11 products.
UberEats accepts credit cards only at this time, as does FoodPanda. UberEats takes some foreign cards. I haven’t tried this, but you can buy FoodPanda vouchers though Line Pay.
FamilyMart and 7-11 also deliver directly, but I never tried.
Line Pay:
If you don’t have a credit card, this is the best way I’ve found to pay for things online without using COD. It’s in English (mostly) and you can pay by adding money directly through your bank. This requires that you have OTP set up at your bank, which you probably do if you use your bank’s app for your account. You can also pay with credit cards. You do need to verify your identity, but they accept ARCs.
Line Pay also gives you points back for purchases as some stores. You usually get 1% through Carrefour, Yahoo Shopping, Rakutan, and sometimes more if they have a special. Other stores do the same on and off. Line Shopping has their own online shopping.
EasyWallet is about the same in terms of making payment, but not widely accepted.
ATM: If you can’t go out, your can do ATM transfers on your bank’s app. You need to have OTP (over the phone) enabled on your account. You may be able to do this at an ATM, or may need to go to the bank.
That should keep you all fed!
I scanned the rules and I think this is ok, but mods can delete this last part if they want. I worked three hours on this (with the TV on, so it’s like WFH), and if you want to use them, these are discount codes that will help us both. Only good if you are signing up for the first time, click or enter when you sign up:
Shopee, this gets you 2x your order in Shopee coins, which you can use to buy things(I think! May expire):
WILLIHN3
UberEats, this gets you $100 off when you make 2 orders of $150+:
eats-tkr3a
FoodPanda, $100 of your first order when you sign up here:
https://www.foodpanda.com.tw/referral?code=296710cdb2ff72ddef30f94768dec763&geid=FP_TW