Safeway.com comes to Silverdale area

Kati Shaw pushes the cart swiftly down the aisles. Along the way she picks up a cantaloupe, milk and butter. She holds the melon, checks for ripeness and places it in the cart.

While she won’t be taking the items home herself, she hand-selects the best items as if she were.

The Silverdale Safeway unveiled its online shopping option for the greater Kitsap peninsula.

The store, located at 2890 N.W. Bucklin Hill Road, provides the service from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The orders, which are delivered same-day if submitted before 9:30 a.m., are trickling in. Shaw, the store’s home shopping department manager, filled three Thursday morning, but the personal shoppers can fill up to 50 orders a day.

Since its 2001 debut, Safeway.com has experienced steady growth, doubling sales in 2003. With the addition of the Silverdale store, Safeway.com serves 166 zip code areas in the greater Seattle area.

“This is an expansion for us,” said Lesa Musatto, senior vice president of marketing for Safeway.com. As word gets out and online orders pick up staff and delivery trucks would be added, she said.

Safeway.com charges a delivery fee of $4.95 for orders $150 or more and or $9.95 for orders under $150. The minimum order is $50.

The same products and prices in the store are online.

After selecting the items, the customer is given an estimate of what the total cost is. A credit card is authorized for that amount. When shoppers such as Shaw scan the items as they shop, with the final cost show on their invoice. There are experts in each department (produce, meat etc.) shopping for those items Mussato explained.

“The introduction of Safeway.com to Silverdale allows us to deliver the high level of service we’re known for throughout the greater Seattle area to the busy residents of Silverdale who’ve been excited about the arrival of Safeway.com to their community,” said Mitch Rhodes, president of Safeway.com.

Deliveries are made during a two or four hour period the customer chooses.

Three personal shoppers and two delivery drivers have been hired to take on the orders. Their cart has a scanner to ring up items and a computerized mapping system that shows exactly where the item is on the aisle.

Safeway.com’s “My Favorites” grocery list builder, which immediately provides existing Safeway Club Card users with their first online shopping list. It’s a categorized list of as many as 300 products the shopper recently purchased using a Safeway Club Card inside a store.

Safeway.com offers online service in Seattle, Vancouver, Wash., Portland, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.

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