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Eugh - grocery shopping! One of those necessary tasks for those of us without staff, but the day I can afford a Filipino maid is the day I hang up my grocery shopping bag for good. In the meantime, anything that saves time and money will do. The problem with shopping for groceries is that a lot of items tend to disappear out of the cupboards unexpectedly. You were absolutely sure you'd bought enough tea, coffee, cereal and cat food for the week. The next thing you know the kitchen is full of starving children and unimpressed felines. I'm fairly certain that the cats in the family have secretly learned how to open the tins – I blame the ring pull variety – while try explaining a global economic crises and the soaring cost of living to a horde of lip-quivering adversaries. Big Shops, Little Shops The inevitable result is that between big shops you seem to spend half your time doing lots of little shops, meaning that you can just about forget pencilling in me-time. Online grocery shopping has to be said to have helped - for the big shop at least. Saturday mornings were never my favourite, long lie-ins tending to be out of the question when you have a long supermarket queue to join instead. For big shops, despite initial reservations, the quality and savings you can make by shopping through the supermarkets online services can be a real help. Shopping for groceries online can also help you to avoid unnecessary purchases, all those things that aren't on the list but end up in the shopping trolley. The High Street Battle But what about those little shops? Is there a way round that as well? To some extent the answer is yes. Smaller firms are catching up, or in some cases leading the way, with new services catering to the growing demand for fresh local produce. The last ten years has seen many of us concerned about what we eat and where it is coming from. Plenty of small producers are now offering delivery services for our groceries. In part, these services have been developed to combat the 'drain' of customers from town and city centres to the massive out-of-town stores. This has seen a growth in the number of traditional businesses seeing the opportunities to cater to a new online grocery shopping demands. In addition many traditional businesses have diversified to survive in the modern world. Back to the Future Many of these services are something of a 'back to the future' sort of arrangement. Services that had begun to disappear from our streets are returning and making something of comeback. Milkmen and women are now offering a far greater range of goods than a simple pint of milk or the occasional carton of juice. Some offer a full range of daily essentials which can be ordered online and have the advantage of turning up first thing next morning. For small grocery shops this is one of the best ways to get your grocery shopping sorted – with late ordering times, next day delivery and no delivery charges, it can take a lot of time and effort out of the process. When I get that maid, I'll definitely be recommending this sort of shopping to her. Online food shopping has seen a boom in the last few years, while the recession has created some great services offered by companies looking to provide online services and allowing shoppers to order groceries online that are competitive and cost effective for customers.
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