I'm often the grocery runner at our house. I'll hit the store on my way back from a Computer Guy service call, so I haven't had a chance to pick up a shopping list at home.
For short lists, text messages can get a list to my phone OK. For slightly longer lists, my wife will write it on a piece of paper and then shoot a picture of it with her phone and send it as a photo message. This also works very well.
But if the list is long, then I need to able to check off the items as I pick them up. Otherwise, inexpert shopper that I am, I have to keep checking my work.
Our default local grocery is a Hannaford's and like A&P and others, they have a shopping list generator at their website. Hannaford's version not super sophisticated and, in fact, is down-right kludgy in some features, but it does have a feature that is pretty sweet. From the standard web page, it will generate a check-off shopping list for my mobile browser.
Whenever the web-based list is updated, then a quick refresh on my phone gets the new version of the list in the mobile browser. The mobile version is nicely formatted in a compact list with a toggle-able check mark next to each item. This is really nice.
Having seen it and used it; I'd give it a 3-out-5 star rating. Maybe 3 and a half. I'm hoping that Hannaford's is open to noting some issues with the feature and maybe will consider some suggestions that might make this nifty feature even better. It gets close to perfect, as is, just a few tweaks will get it to 5-stars.
First, for the online list editor itself; it does let you enter whatever text like for an item -- which is very good -- but if you want to narrow it to a specific unit of a specific product, you have to pick through pages and pages of inventory items. Magic word: "Search". Please add a search feature that can be used in browsing for each list item.
Second, there is no store-order filter. In fact, you can't change the order of items in this list in any way. Items go into the list in the order entered, with most recent at the top. That is; there is no way to automatically or manually make the list go in store- or section- order.
When you "save" the list, the mobile version of the list is reordered alphabetically -- by the first word. True, that is better than no order at all, but it's kind of fundamental to group frozen things, and produce things, and meat things and so on. Right? Otherwise a dofus shopper, like me, will be wandering from bananas on one end to bread on the other and then all the way back to cat food in the middle.
Weirdly, the order in the list editor does not change. It's still the sort of random order in which you entered the items.
Third, while the mobile check list is handiest thing about the Hannaford's online shopping list;
-- The mobile list is not editable -- if you think of something you need at the other end of the store, you're out of luck. Unless you want to switch to the (non-mobile) editable version to make the change to your list. BUT...
-- The mobile list has to be manually updated with a browser refresh, if the list is changed in the editor (say, by your SO at home, or by you adding an item for the other end of the store). BUT...
-- The checks do not persist if the list is refreshed. So if your SO does update the list at home and you do refresh it on your phone, poof, your check marks disappear. Ack!
Fourth, the only edit item for the mobile list is a button to "Clear All Checked Items", but this really means "Clear All Checkmarks". It does not actually remove or hide items that you have checked off your list. This is handy if you want to preserve your list for the next trip, but the language is a little unclear. A nit, for sure.
Fifth, the mobile list font is a fixed size, so that I can't zoom in it. Please, Hannaford; let me zoom.
Lastly: another nit. The Hannaford.com site doesn't automatically recognize a mobile browser. You have to type "/mobile" to get to the mobile version of the list. Not a big deal. Come to think of it; until the mobile list is editable, this may be an advantage.
Oh yeah, as long as I'm using this thing; for check out it would be handy to have my Hannaford customer ID bar code come up on the screen of my phone, so that I don't have to fish for the Hannaford sticker taped to the back of my ShopRite card.
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