Dumpling Grocery 4+

Hi - I like most of the things about this app. I followed my shopper here because he was always nice and because he seemed to respect that I am trans and he stopped calling me ma’am when I explained this. But somehow on this app, I got ma’amed constantly on my first order. I don’t know if this is an app-related thing or if there’s some other reason I got 50k ma’am’s thrown my way but it drove me nuts last time. Also, I went to do a second order, and the app started out my experience telling me that it looked like I didn’t want to use the app and then asking me to explain why. Whyyyy would you make this a customer experience? I was there to make an order, not to explain myself for not already making a second order. Also I have 9 notifications that I have messages. I went and looked, and they are all the same stupid message about piggybacking on another order. Can I mark them all as read or to delete them? No. Can I navigate easily from one message to the other? Also no. I have to go back and forth from the message list to each (identical, obnoxious) message in order to mark them read. Is that why I opened the app? No. But that message notification count is gonna drive me nuts if I don’t do it. Anyway what haven’t I done yet today? Ordered my groceries. Because the app is irritating me and I am dreading being called ma’am a million times later today.

First and foremost do not dare compare this app with Instacart or Shipt. This app connects you to personal shoppers who use this platform to offer their services. Is it expensive? Let’s see. I shopped at Trader Joe’s which no other app offers. The shopper stood in line for over an hour due to the pandemic. Was on the phone with me the whole time offering substitutions for items missing. Even did face timing. Chose the best produce that I needed. He brought me the receipt and called me to explain the cost. Basically my fees were 20% FEE and I put in a 20% gratuity. They did not price gouge on the items. I put the same items in instacart cart and it was still cheaper this way. These shoppers are risking their lives everyday by going to the store for us. Those of you who put one star complaining about pricing, get your cheap behinds off the couch, wear mask and gloves go stand in line for an hour and shop yourselves. This luxury and yes I said it, luxury is not for you. You guys don’t deserve this service if you are complaining.

After I found out that Instacart fired every employee who tried to form a union, I wanted to find a way to get groceries delivered that treated the shoppers fairly. This is it. Each shopper gets the set the amount they want to be paid (and we can still tip extra). I love that I can have the same shopper each week!

Three things that could improve the app itself:
1. Keep an electronic record of each item that was actually purchased in each order and how much they cost. My shopper always gives me the paper receipt but it would be better if I could access an electronic copy of each order. The other apps do this.
2. The search function could be better. It doesn’t allow you to narrow down the search by being more specific. For example, if I type “coffee ice cream”, instead of making the first results things that have both coffee and ice cream in the title, it shows everything that has coffee or ice cream in the title. There’s a limit of how many results we can see and sometimes the actual thing we are looking for gets buried in all the other stuff and we can’t even find it.
3. Being able to see a list of past items is really helpful. It would be great if we could search within that.

Highly recommend Dumpling!