These days, it is vitally important that you learn to save money everywhere you can. Many people do this by learning how to buy in bulk online, especially when it comes to things like groceries and household goods. In some cases, you might find a bulk food store like Boxed.com that obviously sells these types of items. In other cases, you might choose to go to a place like Amazon.com, a place where you can purchase just about anything, although many people don’t actually realize that you can buy groceries there as well. Still others choose Costco, the popular chain that has since branched into selling items online as well as in brick and mortar stores. In this particular article, you have the opportunity to learn about the way that these three companies operate as well as advantages and disadvantages of each.
Bulk Food Online
Most people have learned about the benefits of bulk shipping. The idea is to allow you to buy in bulk, thus saving you money on the item that you purchased. In fact, one of the biggest benefits of buying in bulk is that you can often do so at considerable savings. This is especially helpful if you use a product rapidly or if you have a larger family that allows you to go through products at a more rapid pace. In these cases, you probably need to buy in bulk anyway so you might as well take advantage of services like these so you can get the cost savings instead of paying more for each individual item that you purchase.
Boxed.com
This is easily the newest store of its type out of the three. In fact, some people are a little bit skeptical about using services from the website because of the fact that it is so new. However, those that have used it have reported being extremely happy with the service. There are actually a lot of things that make the site preferable over the other two sites being reviewed.
Special Offer From Boxed.Com!
First and foremost, they provide a free service that does not require you to purchase a membership in order to shop there, something that you won’t get at either Amazon or Costco. Their website is also easy to use, laid out in such a way that you can find exactly what you are looking for and choose the right products for yourself and your family in a minimum amount of time. After all, nobody wants to spend hours searching through a complicated website just to get a few household goods delivered. Therefore, this is a huge plus because you are able to go in, get what you need and finish up in a matter of minutes.
It makes it the perfect fit for even the busiest of individuals and ensures that you will have more time to spend with your family because you aren’t spending hours trying to buy groceries. In most cases, free shipping is provided on the majority of your orders and the first order is always free. It usually takes anywhere from a single day up to three days for you to get your order, which is comparable to other services. In some cases, you might have to have a minimum order in order for you to get your items. It really depends on the area in which you live, so it is important to investigate this on the website before you do anything else.
Amazon
If you are not yet aware of it, you can buy groceries through Amazon Prime. Like virtually everything else associated with Amazon, one of the biggest benefits to using the service is that you can find practically anything you want, no matter how obscure it might be. This is not necessarily the case with the other two services, so if you frequently buy the more obscure items, this might be something that you want to look into. Like everything else Amazon does, you purchase your groceries online but you have to have an Amazon Prime membership in order to do it. This is something that many people balk at because the cost of the membership is $99 to begin with. That doesn’t include the actual purchase price of any of the materials that you buy, so you have to be willing to fork over almost one hundred dollars in cash just to get the membership and then go shopping. Some people are okay with this, but many others are not. The truth is, you can get a lot of similar products at Boxed.com and you can do so for less cost. In addition, there is no membership fee to shop with the other website like there is with Amazon. However, it is hard to beat Amazon when it comes to customer service and they typically have everything you have ordered to you within two days, something that can come in handy if you are out of something you really love and you don’t want to wait for it.
Costco
Costco is a mainstay in many parts of the country, as individuals have been shopping at their brick-and-mortar stores for years. More recently, the company decided that it would be a good idea to make the same products that people can frequently purchased in stores available online. Again, you have to be willing to pay a membership if you want to do this. Costco has a lot of items that you can choose from, although the selection is not as vast as Amazon’s. They do provide a larger selection of items than Boxed.com, so this might be something to take into consideration if variety is extremely important to you. For most people, the extra costs involved are simply not worth it just so they can choose between five brands of paper towels instead of two. In addition, Costco has become something of an embattled company, especially in recent weeks. Much of this centers around the fact that their customer service can sometimes be lacking and they don’t seem like they always put their customers first. They are a huge company so you might think of them as being typical of most very large companies in the United States. They sometimes have a tendency to forget about individual customers, simply because they have grown to such a large size that they no longer consider every single individual who shops with them to be vital to their success.
Summary
When it is all said and done, there are advantages to shopping at a bulk food store that allows you to buy in bulk online. First and foremost, you save money. Next, you don’t have to constantly run to the supermarket in order to get items that you are out of because you are buying larger quantities in the first place. The obvious disadvantage is that if you live alone, it might be difficult to go through perishable products that are shipped in bulk before they spoil. This is especially true of dairy items like milk. If you think that shopping online and buying in bulk might appeal to you, you can probably save the most money by shopping at Boxed.com. However, if it is more important to you to have a vast selection of items, you might want to consider Amazon or Costco. It really comes down to your personal preferences and what you and your family prefer to have in your home.