Walgreens

Full review
I am always looking for ways to save time, money, trips to the store, you know the deal. I love to cruise around online and pick up necessities. After years of pleasant experiences with frontrunner Drugstore.com, I decided to give Walgreens.com a try. Free shipping on orders over $50.00 and being nearly out of several household staples convinced me the time was right.

Visiting Walgreens.com-
The first thing I noticed upon visiting Walgreens is that it appears to be more than just a shopping portal. The main home page will allow you to do everything from finding a local store (in case you like shopping the old-fashioned way), viewing current ad's, and most importantly to research health topics and concerns.

Shopping at Walgreens.com-
To access the storefront you can either follow a sale link on the main page or click on the shopping tab at the top of the page. Once you reach the shopping section, you can elect to browse and purchase one of several ways. Links line the left of the page to shop via sale ad, your personal shopping list (once you have one), rebate offers, and special promotions. They also showcase a search box that produces highly effective results. Down at the bottom of the page, Walgreens has many categories with links, and then sub-categories to pick from. I elected to use the search function, and was very pleased with it's performance.

Product Information-
As a product is selected, very thorough details are provided. Ingredients are listed, product size and packaging are all given. The price is prominently displayed, as well as the breakdown per oz. You can choose the quantity desired and add either to your list or cart.

Checking Out-
Nothing is unusual here. Checkout is pretty standard, with returning customers able to log in with their user name and password, and new users signing up with all of the pertinent shipping, and billing information. Payment can be made by either Visa, Mastercard, Discover and AMEX only. There are no options for checking withdrawals at this time.

Order Verification-
Promptly upon ordering, notification came via e-mail of my order, total cost and shipping information. The next day, a shipping notice was given along with a UPS tracking number and link for tracking my package.

Shipping and Delivery-
Of the four online orders I placed last week on the same day, only Walgreens shipped the next day, and to date is the only one I've received. The are far and away doing a fine job of shipping and prompt delivery.

Getting My Order-
As I mentioned, my order came in lickety-split fashion however I did have two problems with the order. Ah, but every rose has it's thorn doesn't it?

First problem-UPS simply dropped my order off on my porch. I was home, and I heard him do it. Never knocked, never rang the bell, just dropped it and drove off. Thankfully I was home, but this is not the UPS service I am accustomed to. Perhaps Walgreens doesn't require a signature, not too smart.

Second and Bigger Problem-My order is missing an item, the item I really, truly needed and the reason I decided to order some drugstore things in the first place. Walgreens never notified me, asked me it I'd like to make another selection, called me and asked what I'd like to do. Nothing, just shipped it out anyway and put a little blurb on the bottom of my packing slip that since an item I'd ordered was out of stock, they'd given me free shipping for my trouble. Do you mean the free shipping, I'd already earned for spending more than $50.00? Gee, how generous of Walgreens. I called them on it, and their reply was that once my item (that they'd been unable to ship) was cancelled, my order was less than $50.00 and no longer qualified for free shipping, but they'd been nice enough to supply it anyway. Wow, I was floored. In my opinion this so called customer service leaves much to be desired. I simply refuse to order from companies that can't accurately reflect in stock items, don't notify you of order changes prior to shipment, and when a mistake is made really don't care.

All In All-
I reluctantly recommend Walgreens because I did mostly get my order and the shipping was quite fast. Would I ever order from them again is another matter entirely. As I mentioned earlier I just find the online market too competitive to settle for less than great.