Carlisle >> Giant Food Stores has expanded its partnership with Peapod by Giant to offer online grocery shopping and delivery in Exeter, Birdsboro, Reading and other Berks County communities.
With the expansion, residents and businesses can visit peapod.com or Peapod’s mobile app to shop for grocery store items for delivery to their home or workplace.
“At Giant, we are focused on making it an easy shopping experience no matter where, when, or how our customers want to shop for their groceries,” Matt Simon, Giant vice president, marketing said in a press release. “The Reading market is important to our growth, and Peapod is a great addition that will help us meet the evolving needs of our customers.”
The grocery store chain began delivering Peapod by Giant in 2015.
“We’ve seen incredible demand for the service and are thrilled to keep expanding to meet that demand,” said Giant spokesman Chris Brand.
The delivery service is supported by warerooms – separate areas that are attached to existing Giant stores. The warerooms are stocked with an assortment of products that are available through the online shopping service. Employees “shop” the wareroom for items and prepare the orders for delivery.
There are currently four warerooms in Pennsylvania. The newest – located at the Giant Food Store, 86 Glocker Way in North Coventry – is the facility being used to service the new area.
The North Coventry location opened in February 2018, with plans to add 120 new jobs.
At the February grand opening of the North Coventry location, Sarah Baird, vice president of operations for Peapod, said that location was expected to enable Peapod to serve up to 25 percent more shoppers in the greater Philadelphia area.
“We’re able to create a personalized and curated shopping experience that helps busy consumers find what they’re looking for with just a few clicks,” Walt Lentz, Peapod’s acting president, said in the release. “This ease of use has been core to growing our business by double digits in the region for the last three consecutive years.”
Not every item a shopper might find at a Giant Food Store is available through the online delivery service. However, Brand stressed that Peapod offers more than 12,000 products in a range of categories including: produce, meat and seafood, deli items, prepared foods and meal kits, organic foods, Kosher foods, office and school supplies, pet items and health and beauty.
Getting started with the service is simple, according to Brand. Customers begin by logging on to Peapod and creating an account.
“If you are a Giant Food shopper and have a loyalty card, simply enter your number and we’ll recognize your purchase history and also ensure you earn A+ and Gas Rewards on your Peapod purchases just like you would in store,” Brand said.
He added that while everyone has their own favorite tools, a “Browse Aisles” feature takes customers through a digital marketplace with all the categories found at a traditional grocery store.
“Within your search, our filtering tool lets you sort by specials, past purchases, brands and nearly 20 nutritional preferences such as organic, gluten-free, peanut-free, vegetarian and vegan,” he added.
Using “order genius,” Brand said customers can fill their online shopping cart with the items they buy most frequently.
For information about Peapod and how it works visit https://about.peapod.com/how-it-works/
For orders of $60 to $75, there is a fee of $9.95, according to Brand. For orders of $75.01 to $100 the fee is $8.95, while orders exceeding $100 have a fee of $7.95.
Peapod also offers PodPass, which is an optional membership program for unlimited free deliveries.
Peapod by Giant grocery delivery is now available in the following zip codes: 19508, 19560, 19601, 19602, 19604, 19605, 19606, 19607, 19608, 19609, 19610, and 19611.
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