Voila Grocery Delivery

I’m a regular user of new grocery services... I would rather do many other things than Grocery shop With my son! Tried Voila a few days ago and was pleasantly surprised. I rarely have shopped at Sobeys because I find their pricing to be high but Voila has many items on sale and were similarly priced as my regular store. The website was very easy to use, no problems with navigation or freezing. The delivery went as planned, in fact, my delivery was within the 1st 5 minutes of my delivery window. My delivery driver was very polite and dressed with a Voila shirt, wore a mask and made sure he mentioned that he had checked the temperature of the frozen/refrigerated items. I found the delivery fee of $7.99 to be competitive.. it’s less than similar services. The quality of the meat and produce were of high quality and well packaged. Overall , I’d recommend and would use them again! #chickadvisor #voila #sobeys #paidreview

Voucher code enticed me to order from Voila

They promise a one hour delivery window and fulfilled that promise.
My order was for 11am to noon, I made a request to have the driver message me when close by and he did so giving me a 15 minutes.
The truck has different areas where they store frozen, refrigerated and shelf items. The driver wore a mask and gloves, he was friendly and pleasant. A few items were out of stock and I had to rethink my order in order to get to the use of the voucher. My order did not contain any fresh produce, but did contain freezer items which were frozen upon arrival.

Voila delivery service by Sobeys

This was my first time buying groceries on line, so it took a while to look through all the different departments. The groceries were delivered on time and the delivery person was very efficient. It’s a great service when you can’t go to shop in person.

Good quality, friendly service, but very pricey

I received a $25 off coupon for $100 order from ChickAdvisor in exchange for my jonest review of Sobey's new Voilà grocery delivery service.

The time windows were very quick. If I wanted to I was able to choose something for next day delivery. They seemed to have a lot of availability, which was great. I did not have any issue choosing something for a Sunday which is what worked best for me since weekdays are tight with my job.

Their website was a little difficult to navigate. Even when I typed in certain items they would not come up. I had to go through the menus to find them the long way. So I'm not sure if there is something going on with their search functionality that they still have yet to work out. Mostly, though, things were easy to find. There seemed to be quite a bit of variety on the website but nowhere near what is available in store. There were some items I wanted to include in my order that they simply did not have. Thankfully all staples and most versions of those staples were available. I also liked that they have a Sales section you can shop from if you are looking for deals, sort of like you would find in the flyers.

There are two big downfalls for this service that I actually feel are deal-breakers for me personally because I live alone and this service just does not cater to someone like me for these reasons. One, you cannot choose individual produce. With similar delivery services I have always been able to choose 1 banana or 1 tomato like you can if you were in the store. With Voilà, unfortubately, they make you buy produce in bunches of their choosing which is highly inconvenient. They gave me a huge bunch of bananas which made me spend more money than I wanted and also a lot went bad before I could finish them all. I think you should be able to buy as many or as few products as you wish. It doesn't make a lot of sense to force someone to buy an excessive amount of produce that will go to waste, making them spend more money and wasting produce that will not get eaten before it goes bad. There are other services that allow me to buy individual items so I think they need to fix this.

The second thing is that their products are extremely expensive. I think this is more about paying for convenience because I do not mind so much paying the $7.99 delivery fee or a tip for the driver. But the actual food in their stores is so overpriced that I could not afford to buy from this service on a regular basis, especially as a single person, by any means. As an example, a pack of 5 corn was $6.49 and that is just not in my price range. Their Compliments brand items were more reasonable though.

I was informed by the driver they will start charging for bags as well but that you could bring them back to the store to be reimbursed once COVID is over. I feel this might defeat the purpose of grocery delivery for a lot of people because I personally use it because I do not have a car. I would not take bags back for reimbursement since I am too far from most stores and would not get on the bus to get a few cents back for bags. It might be worth it for those who drive.

The driver texted to inform me she was about 20 minutes away, which was great. I appreciated the heads up. She also asked me, since I am in an apartment, if I would like her to come up with the groceries or if I wanted to come down to get them. She was extremely friendly and professional and was wearing a mask. The service was top notch! She explained about the bags, as stated above. She also explained that the double markings on the bag handles were indicative of cold produce that needed to be put in the fridge or freezer right away which I thought was a great touch! All the food was kept at good temperatures: the produce and dairy was all cold and everything frozen was frozen.

Overall, there are things that need to be improved about this service such as the website functionality and perhaps the variety of items compared to that of in-store. For sure I think people should be able to choose the number of produce items they want instead of being forced to buy a "bunch" of Sobey's choosing - that would be my number one issue. But the service people are very friendly. I did need to get a refund for one item and the process was very quick for that as well. I think affordability is the main issue here for most people; it is just out of the price range for a lot of people.

OK - good for those who value convenience over cost

This was my first time ordering groceries online. I have a few friends/family who have done it before, some regularly. Overall the process was easy and it would be especially great for those in mandated quarantine, needing heavy items without having a vehicle, or those returning from travel or cottaging who need groceries but maybe don’t have time to go to the store.

A few negative things to note:
- the delivery fee is quite high ($7.99), I believe others charge closer to the $5 mark
- they’re going to charge for bags and are quite liberal with their bag use. I was told they aren’t charging for bags currently but will in the future. The delivery driver said that users should get a credit back for any bags returned, but you can’t return bags if your groceries are being picked up by your building concierge. I also felt like their bag usage was all over the place. Some bags were full while many others had only one small item in them.
- pricing is high and not consistent with regular store offers. It’s best to treat the online/delivery store as a completely separate entity as the pricing is completely different (usually higher) than going in store and offers will differ between them.
- selection is limited. Unlike other services that offer the same items in store and online, I found this service had some items with a ton of selection (ie kombucha) and others with very little choice.

I’m unlikely to use this service again, mainly because of my concerns with the pricing. That’s not to say it isn’t a good service that could be very valuable to some, it’s just not valuable to me from a budget and selection perspective. I would recommend this service to anyone who values convenience over budget/selection.

Timely Support

It's a comfort knowing there is a service like Viola to help during times of crisis, such as this pandemic isolation. It's a valuable service that you appreciate when your unable to go out and shop for yourself.
The discount I received for this delivery was very fair and it was easy to have my order processed. I enjoyed the quality & customer service by the Viola staff.

Great idea

THIS was the 1st time I had EVER tried a service like this before. Overall...its an excellent idea & option from conventional grocery shopping. There are however some things I dislike.

You can not price match or use coupons. I PERSONALLY like to get things at the lowest price possible. The selection isn't the greatest....for instance, I could not get the bag salad my family enjoys, nor could I get "old" cheddar cheese.

I actually had to change my time slot to accommodate some of the groceries in my "cart" which actually confused me a little. My question is, why would cheese slices be available at 6 a.m but not at 2 p.m??

I think a service like this would is a great option for people who are really busy, or even those at home under the weather.

I would recommend this to a friend or family member.

Thank you @chickAdvisor and @voila for the free trial of this.

Great service

I thought for value, voila was better than comparable services. Flat rate shipping and direct from warehouse made it more appealing. I had some issues with product availability and pricing wasn't as good as where I normally shop but I would order again.
Delivery was awesome. They showed up on time and called ahead to say they were almost here.

I would use this service again

I was fortunate enough to be selected to try out Voila, the delivery service from Sobeys. I found navigating the site was easy, and they let you know if any items you put in the cart are not available on your selected delivery day and time - for me it was bananas.

I did find they didnt carry certain items that may be available in store, for me it was some frozen chicken that my children love to eat.

The prices are similar to other grocery delivery platforms.

The delivery guy called to let me know he was on his way with my order, and he was very friendly and courteous on arrival.

The items I ordered seemed to be quite fresh.

Great quality products

Please note that I received a discount as part of a Product Review Club offer. That being said I intended to try them anyway as I already use Walmart, Metro and Insta Cart for delivery.
In terms of delivery fee they are on the lower end of competitors at $7.99 which is extremely reasonable for a delivery charge. Having my groceries delivered saves me at least an hour of my time not to mention the aggravation of shopping in person.
I love that I can buy products from Farm Boy, Sobeys and Freshco but I think selection is much too limited and I wasn't able to get everything I needed for my weekly shop which resulted in a trip to the store in person to pick up items not available. Definitely defeats the purpose of having my groceries delivered.
Produce selection is seriously lacking but the produce I have received is top quality. Same with fruit. Poor selection, great quality.
Other products are not available and I would have expected to find more items available that are also in store.
Hopefully they tweak product availability and allow me to shop off the flyers to get more items that are on sale as do other grocery stores that offer delivery.