What to ALWAYS buy at the Dollar Tree.

 

Have you ever thought about using Harris Teeter’s Expresslane?  It’s a shopping service where you place your order online and a Harris Teeter personal shopper will shop your list for you- you pull up and they load it all in your car!   I’ve been using it for nearly a year and LOVING it. I am an HT Plus member.

7/24/24 Update.

Membership Costs:

Things you need to know:

• Your first order is FREE. Normally a single order is $4.95 unless the order is over $35. These are free for everyone.  You can pay for a month of orders or a full year subscription.
• The prices online are generally the same as in-store.  However B2G3, Stock Up and Save, eVIC weekend offers, Expresslane Freebies, will only show on your final receipt when you pick up your order.  Your estimated total online will not reflect these.
• You can use coupons with Expresslane. For the past several visits the shopper has scanned my coupons at the car and applied it to that order!
• You can use EBT, however you will have to go inside the store to do so.
• Harris Teeter offers FREEBIES and Special pricing every week for Expresslane orders!
• You can get a free 30 day trial of HT Plus.

 

How it Works:

1) Register an Express Lane Account. Set your local store. Be sure to register your VIC card to get sale prices!

2) Add the items you want to your cart.

3) Once your shopping is done you will head to checkout.  You can opt to allow substitutions for out of stock items or you can ask for a raincheck instead

 

4) Pick your pickup time.

You can place an order days in advance.  HOWEVER – if you put an order in on Monday for pickup on Friday- the sale prices will have changed.  The items on sale Monday change over Tuesday around 4 pm on the expresslane system.  That means what you thought was going to be on sale won’t be when your order is shopped.

To be sure you are getting the right prices for your order always place and pickup an order during the same sale week (Order and pickup from Wed- Tuesday).

You will have the ability to modify your order up until they begin to shop the order.

5) Sit back & Wait for your pick up time.  Okay probably not.  You’ll probably be doing the 673 other items on your to-do list but at least you aren’t trying to keep little hands off the products and avoid being hit with the mini shopper carts!  Your personal shopper is gathering everything you need and navigating the aisles for you! Then they’ll load all the perishable items into these coolers just waiting for you to come pick it up. You will get an email and a text letting you know that your order is ready (we’ve found that they are generally done much earlier than the scheduled pick up time).

6) Pick it up. Simply drive up to the expresslane area and press use the Harris Teeter app to chose “I’m here”.  Pop your truck or open the door and the Personal Shopper will head over with your  order and you will hand over your payment and they will load your car.  Off you go!  We timed the last Expresslane pickup and it was 7 minutes and 40 seconds from hitting the parking lot to hitting the highway!

The biggest downside to Expresslane is that they don’t bring it home and unpack it for you!

What if there is something wrong with the order when you get home?  They make it right!  Once they left off a bag of shrimp from Lauren’s order.  A Harris Teeter employee brought it out to her AND they gave her $20 off her next order.

Should I tip my personal shopper?  Nope!  Harris Teeter employees aren’t allowed to accept tips.  The best way you can show your gratitude is by letting Harris Teeter corporate know what an amazing job they did.

 

What We Think:

Harris Teeter’s customer service is always top notch and their personal shoppers take it to the next level! We love that you can get rainchecks, catalinas and rebates!

Who it would be great for: 

-Shoppers who have impulse purchase issues.  This can keep you on budget and away from throwing things in your buggy.
-Busy people who still want to save with coupons.  Let them shop and you jut hand them over.

Who it might be difficult for :

-People who like to control exactly which package of meat, produce, etc.  (Keep in mind the Personal Shoppers are going to shop for the biggest, best, freshest for you but when it comes down to personal preferences they can’t imitate you exactly)
-People who like to look for marked down meat,  quick sale produce, peelies and tearpads.
-People who enjoy being in the store – unless you want to drop your coupons off you never have to set foot in the store!

Lauren loves couponing but she doesn’t like being in the store (might flash back to her days as a Customer Service Rep at Harris Teeter…told you we had insiders here at MSM!) so expresslane is awesome for her!  She places the order, lets them shop and she brings her coupons inside.  She saves time AND money.  For me, I love picking up quick sale items and marked down produce so I’ll keep doing my own shopping!

*Disclaimer: Harris Teeter has played no part in this post.   We bought our own groceries and  Lauren paid for the service too!