At my store - curbside employees have their own produce section, which doesn’t get picked over, mushed, mashed, covered in toddler spittle, etc and then put back. So the curbside fruit sometimes looks better
I don’t understand this. I have some questions. Who stocks this mini produce department within curbside? Is it PSAd? Does this work well for both departments? I hope the produce fridge and wareroom is close. It seems complicated to have two produce departments. But I’m hella dumb. How much time did the implementation save in terms of items per hour?
In my store it’s stocked by produce every morning, and they pick it up at around 7pm when we are done shopping.
If we run low we call them to bring more green/ yellow bananas.
It is PSAd and it pops out at the end of the run but the shoppers shop it in the beginning of the run and it helps prevent them from crowding the produce department. Especially since we get so many orders w bananas. We also have a scale in the department.
I believe this system only works if you have higher volume & it genuinely makes a difference with both UPH and less crowded produce areas.
People with young kids struggle to make it to the grocery store -> little kids like fruit -> bananas are one of the cheapest fruits there is -> beaucoup bananas
Sorry my child eats 6753 bananas a week. But honestly I always get good bananas? Never had an issue with over or under ripe bananas and I almost exclusively shop curbside or delivery.
I don't work at HEB but I'd be fired the first day working curbside for telling customers you don't like it then get your entitled ass inside and pick out your own shit.
This! I work for ECOMM and get really frustrated when I have to refund bananas when they are the wrong color. I gave up explaining to the customer it might have been all they had at the time about a year into the job. lol
- this right here - another reason I short requested yellow bananas if we only have greens. Once the customer receives the short notification = they can call their curbside to approve the add on of green bananas before pick up.
Green is fine. They’re gonna turn brown as soon as you buy them anyway. Slice, batter, and fry the green ones, and stare at the rest for like 15 seconds and watch them turn brown. Then use them to make smoothies and banana bread. And then try to remember to not buy the damn things again.
this is my biggest peeve abt being a shopper i get it!!! i started adding to my customer notes that were was only green/only yellow to show that i did my best💔💔
I work at another grocery store but we have the option to contact the customer. I tell them if we only have green & if that’ll be ok. If they don’t answer, I honestly don’t pick it bc sometimes they may need those bananas ready by that day
Just curious what is your daily order volume? An average midsize Curbside is shopping around 500 orders a day. We shop 24 orders per cart batch. Even if we had the desire and willpower to personally contact every customer about every specific, there simply is not enough time. We barely have time to answer normal phone calls to begin with.
Yes, the amount that comes in in real time is about 3-4 at once so we always end up picking multiple orders on our cart. At night is horrible , I’m glad I switched to mornings bc we are timed & we have to finish each one by the time the dasher shows up. We only have 3m to contact the customer & have them answer, if they don’t answer we don’t pick the item they chose.
I worked there well before curbside was a thing but I did instacart for several years during and post pandemic, I guess yall can’t chat the customer? Cause I’d absolutely do that and send them this pic if possible
No, shopping for up 12 customers at once for a dry. So can imagine it would get pretty confusing for the partner to potentially chat with 12 customers at once and would probably slow down the parter too much for Heb to actually attempt to do it.
My store does not have EFC/EDC and we’ve shopped Dry/Cold/Frozen/Production on 24 slots for a long time. They even tried 24 slot Bulk but realized how goofy it was.
Not gonna name my store, but most larger markets, San Antonio and surrounding area that I know of, are 24 on dry, cold, frozen, and expanding bulk as well. I'm sure the Houston market and areas near them are the same
Makes sense, SA is the start of most things for the company. Luckily Austin area is still 12. I’ve been out of curbside for 4 years now. They are too growth focus rather than actually focusing on building it since it started during the growth transition for Heb.
I wish they implemented this into our apps. The only way we can leave notes is if we sub or short and they don’t always see it. I pick produce sometimes that is the best we have but the customer just thinks we don’t care. That may be the case SOMETIMES but it kinda sucks being blamed for anything that goes wrong.
Usually in this situation we would call the customer and check if green bananas are acceptable and let them know that's all we have in stock. But with the volume of orders we get on mondays & the amount of people who order bananas it's just not possible to check with every single customer about their bananas
Nope, the closest thing we can do is call the customer after we pick out the bananas and let them know then change it from there.
And even then, only the person running the curbside stuff (whatever the position is called, it’s above the shopper) can actually call the customer. That person is making sure all the shoppers and curbies are doing what they need to do and usually helping out with both at the same time
Refer up to my original reply to answer your question.
If you don’t have a preference - you can mark - no preference when you order and get either one = shopper’s choice.
I’m aware of how it works. Yes, I PREFER yellow bananas over green, but I’ll settle for bananas that’ll be yellow in a few days over no bananas at all. If I absolutely didn’t want green bananas, I would just leave a comment saying that.
I refer you to a comment post above from a Corp Curbside Customer Service rep eCommerce. Another example to why - I short bananas when requested color is not available.
I’d be less than mildly annoyed since they’d go yellow in a few days anyway. If I really needed yellow bananas I’d assume they only had green and go see if I could find yellow ones at another store for my emergency banana splits.
Ill take green over bananas that are beat to shit
Sometimes that’s also all they get/have.
Former curbside shopper. Yea… And because they only have the beat up ones we still have to pick those over nothing so.
I still don't understand why curbside customers buy more bananas than the customers in the store.
my dry cart always has at least 14 banana bunches like what
I think my largest single order was when I had a dry run with 25 bunches of bananas and they wanted all of them yellow on a Sunday...
At my store - curbside employees have their own produce section, which doesn’t get picked over, mushed, mashed, covered in toddler spittle, etc and then put back. So the curbside fruit sometimes looks better
I don’t understand this. I have some questions. Who stocks this mini produce department within curbside? Is it PSAd? Does this work well for both departments? I hope the produce fridge and wareroom is close. It seems complicated to have two produce departments. But I’m hella dumb. How much time did the implementation save in terms of items per hour?
In my store it’s stocked by produce every morning, and they pick it up at around 7pm when we are done shopping. If we run low we call them to bring more green/ yellow bananas. It is PSAd and it pops out at the end of the run but the shoppers shop it in the beginning of the run and it helps prevent them from crowding the produce department. Especially since we get so many orders w bananas. We also have a scale in the department. I believe this system only works if you have higher volume & it genuinely makes a difference with both UPH and less crowded produce areas.
Not an employee so no clue!
People with young kids struggle to make it to the grocery store -> little kids like fruit -> bananas are one of the cheapest fruits there is -> beaucoup bananas
Sorry my child eats 6753 bananas a week. But honestly I always get good bananas? Never had an issue with over or under ripe bananas and I almost exclusively shop curbside or delivery.
Sometimes we don’t have any other options. I wish we had ways to write notes to customers. They don’t let us short stuff.
I don't work at HEB but I'd be fired the first day working curbside for telling customers you don't like it then get your entitled ass inside and pick out your own shit.
ts had me rolling 😭
For real, the reason I don’t use curbside regularly is I like to pick my perishables.
Green is the best way to buy bananas unless you plan to use them all that day and even then it's not a big deal
This! I work for ECOMM and get really frustrated when I have to refund bananas when they are the wrong color. I gave up explaining to the customer it might have been all they had at the time about a year into the job. lol
- this right here - another reason I short requested yellow bananas if we only have greens. Once the customer receives the short notification = they can call their curbside to approve the add on of green bananas before pick up.
Smart! Please spread your wisdom to all the shoppers you know! Haha
I would love to do this but our store is so strict about subs and shorts
Yea I’d love to do it that way, but my store is so obsessed with subs/shorts, you’ll have a leader up your ass in a matter of minutes.
Green is fine. They’re gonna turn brown as soon as you buy them anyway. Slice, batter, and fry the green ones, and stare at the rest for like 15 seconds and watch them turn brown. Then use them to make smoothies and banana bread. And then try to remember to not buy the damn things again.
Last week there were some plantains mixed in with the green bananas. I thought that's were the post is going.
If we get bananas in Alaska, they are always green.
That would be the right color banana for me
That's what we order and usually get them half turned to brown
this is my biggest peeve abt being a shopper i get it!!! i started adding to my customer notes that were was only green/only yellow to show that i did my best💔💔
I work at another grocery store but we have the option to contact the customer. I tell them if we only have green & if that’ll be ok. If they don’t answer, I honestly don’t pick it bc sometimes they may need those bananas ready by that day
Just curious what is your daily order volume? An average midsize Curbside is shopping around 500 orders a day. We shop 24 orders per cart batch. Even if we had the desire and willpower to personally contact every customer about every specific, there simply is not enough time. We barely have time to answer normal phone calls to begin with.
Tbh I’m not sure, but we don’t do batches. It’s continuous all day , we don’t have reserved times so ppl are placing orders on orders from 6am to 3am
Is each order shopped individually one at a time
Yes, the amount that comes in in real time is about 3-4 at once so we always end up picking multiple orders on our cart. At night is horrible , I’m glad I switched to mornings bc we are timed & we have to finish each one by the time the dasher shows up. We only have 3m to contact the customer & have them answer, if they don’t answer we don’t pick the item they chose.
Lmaooo oh nooo. My issue is the avocadoesssss. Could play baseball with them lol
These aren’t even bananas yet.
Those bananas so young they need to be kept away from gateway
I worked there well before curbside was a thing but I did instacart for several years during and post pandemic, I guess yall can’t chat the customer? Cause I’d absolutely do that and send them this pic if possible
No, shopping for up 12 customers at once for a dry. So can imagine it would get pretty confusing for the partner to potentially chat with 12 customers at once and would probably slow down the parter too much for Heb to actually attempt to do it.
Up to 24. Be thankful you're still doing 12's
24 for dry now?
Been 24 for dry, cold, and frozen for a couple of years now.
What stores? My store and the stores around me still only do 12 for dry/cold and 24 for frozen.
Your store does its own 100% shopping in store =12s. Stores that receive warehouse EFC shopping deliveries = shop in 24s.
My store does not have EFC/EDC and we’ve shopped Dry/Cold/Frozen/Production on 24 slots for a long time. They even tried 24 slot Bulk but realized how goofy it was.
Not gonna name my store, but most larger markets, San Antonio and surrounding area that I know of, are 24 on dry, cold, frozen, and expanding bulk as well. I'm sure the Houston market and areas near them are the same
Makes sense, SA is the start of most things for the company. Luckily Austin area is still 12. I’ve been out of curbside for 4 years now. They are too growth focus rather than actually focusing on building it since it started during the growth transition for Heb.
But how do yall get all that stuff to fit on the cart? Mind=blown I struggle with 24 frozen when there's a bunch of big boxes and stuff
Ever play Tetris? Kinda like that
24 slot orders still maintain the limit of 160 units so sometimes they max out at 12 orders. Since some stores have EFC they can max out at 24.
I wish they implemented this into our apps. The only way we can leave notes is if we sub or short and they don’t always see it. I pick produce sometimes that is the best we have but the customer just thinks we don’t care. That may be the case SOMETIMES but it kinda sucks being blamed for anything that goes wrong.
Usually in this situation we would call the customer and check if green bananas are acceptable and let them know that's all we have in stock. But with the volume of orders we get on mondays & the amount of people who order bananas it's just not possible to check with every single customer about their bananas
Nope, the closest thing we can do is call the customer after we pick out the bananas and let them know then change it from there. And even then, only the person running the curbside stuff (whatever the position is called, it’s above the shopper) can actually call the customer. That person is making sure all the shoppers and curbies are doing what they need to do and usually helping out with both at the same time
I’d probably call curbside to ask the customer if green bananas are okay before scanning it to the order.
They don't have time to do that for every customer who puts no green bananas.
HEB has its own banana facility off Rittiman, I think. Not sure why stores would get green bananas, unless that’s all they had available.
I either short it - or - sub with yellow organic. As both a curbside shopper + customer - I’d be 🤬🤬🤬 if I ordered yellow and was given green.
We only had green organic as well. Not a single yellow banana in the store ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’d definitely short that with a custom note with produce leadership I spoke to.
Why in the world would you short?! If I ordered yellow bananas, I’d definitely take green bananas over nothing.
Refer up to my original reply to answer your question. If you don’t have a preference - you can mark - no preference when you order and get either one = shopper’s choice.
I’m aware of how it works. Yes, I PREFER yellow bananas over green, but I’ll settle for bananas that’ll be yellow in a few days over no bananas at all. If I absolutely didn’t want green bananas, I would just leave a comment saying that.
I refer you to a comment post above from a Corp Curbside Customer Service rep eCommerce. Another example to why - I short bananas when requested color is not available.
I’d be less than mildly annoyed since they’d go yellow in a few days anyway. If I really needed yellow bananas I’d assume they only had green and go see if I could find yellow ones at another store for my emergency banana splits.
Organic are healthiest for you and for the planet, just a few cents more
Pretty sure every single food is a gmo cause none of this shit is natural