Online shopping dilemma! Days before some residents receive deliveries
It could be days before the average BVI resident receives their pre-ordered groceries from supermarkets approved to offer online shopping and delivery services during the territory’s extended lockdown period.
Two of the BVI’s largest supermarkets — OneMart Superstore and RiteWay Food Market — seem to have already become overwhelmed with online orders since the government announced the seven-day extension roughly 24 hours ago.
Before midday on Sunday, April 19, RiteWay announced that the store was not accepting any more orders, for the time being.
“All orders are currently on hold while we facilitate the processing of current orders,” the statement from RiteWay read.
Three-day wait
One of our news centre’s reporter managed to place an order on the food store’s website just after midnight on Saturday. And after completing the order, she received an alert that her groceries would not be delivered before Wednesday, April 22. It said several orders from other residents were already being processed.
Shoppers are not eligible for delivery services from RiteWay if the price of their order is less than $150.
OneMart reports ‘extremely high demand’
OneMart, in the meantime, has placed a 40-item limit on all online purchases. As for the store’s wait-time, some online shoppers will have to wait up to three days before OneMart processes their order.
This is the case for another of our news centre’s staff who opted to shop with OneMart Sunday morning.
After placing the order, OneMart responded with a confirmatory email that, among other things, said: “We process a limited number of orders per day so your order may take up to 72 hours. We’ll reach out if there is a delay”.
OneMart also said in a generic message on their website that orders “may take longer than usual to be fulfilled” due to the extremely high demand for the service.
Persons who shop online at this supermarket are required to arrange with an independent delivery company to collect their goods, as OneMart does not offer delivery services of their own.
Residents awaiting govt’s official list of approved supermarkets
Up to press time, government — who has pledged that no resident will go hungry during this extended lockdown — is yet to release its full list of supermarkets and essential businesses that have been approved to operate at this time.
This latest curfew is an immediate extension of the 14-day lockdown that was supposed to end on Monday, April 20. Authorities decided to extend the lockdown following the death of a woman who had tested positive for the highly-contagious coronavirus locally.
She is reported to have been in contact with multiple persons before her death. Local health authorities are now conducting a contact-tracing operation and said they need a continued lockdown to do so.
Copyright 2024 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.
Please government get the residents of the BVI food and their necessities befor this lovely little island turn in an uprage
Might as well they riot because goverment is not listening to the people where food demand is concern and these supermarket are not user friendly. Imagine they cutting off order just after 2 hours of opening and still you have to wait 3 days for your order.
Funds are limited because the banks are not open in order for them to process your payroll. No word on the stimulus or directive to landlord to give us a break on the rent. They claim say no one will go hungry but FSN and red cross keep giving you the run around. You will be lucky if you get a respond from your district representative.
They say they dont want to see anyone die from Corona virus I wonder how they feel about little babies and children dieing from hunger, thirst and stavation.
I am fed up of them now.
Well, I hope the government pay the landlords directly cause some tenants are very wicked and will look to keep the money.
Some tenants have money but refusing to pay the landlord whose only source of income is the rent they collect
Government has now made it possible for Supermarkets in particular to operate 24 hours during the curfew with drop offs being done during a certain time frame. It is now for businesses to utilize this to get orders sorted more quickly. The government can only do so much.
BVI Taxi Livery probably won’t have fares for quute a while, which is going to be tough for many working families.
Already equipped, familiar with the roads, customer trained and reporting by District/Association, could they provide courier support to the supermarkets experiencing a surge in online provisioning?
Good Idea but some people are already bawling about delivery fees so they would want a free delivery and still wouldn’t even have the manners to say thanks.
GET temporary workers.
Thank you I dont understand why they dont use common sense.
Because not every supermarket was given passes for all their staff, nor does the government want to….puts more people on the roads. Right now supermarkets in this situation aren’t even able to bring in all their regular workers, let alone hire ones just to be done with them in a couple months.
Govt workers home getting pay. Maybe they could deliver.
Get the pool upkeep workers to bring food , they out and about. They most be ok to be on the roads.
Talk about building an economy. Get additional part time. Even if its 100 they will be grateful for it.
Supa Valu, A-Valu, etc. should be opened for deliveries.
What’s going on?
Could one of their contacts reach out to Government for approval.
That was obviously going to be a problem for the supermarkets to process so many orders. What is also sad is I am sure some people have no cash nor credit card and will be unable to order groceries.
This is a problem that should be expected. The population is around 30,000. The supermarkets wasn’t designed to cater to every single resident on the same day or even week. I’m sure when the cabinet made their decision they didn’t conceive that 30,000 people will require additional groceries considering that they were allowed to shop 2 weeks ago.
I cant even fathom the supermarkets making 500 deliveries in a day. People are to blame as well, they have to be smarter. Its always better to have too much than too less. Plan for the future. Suppose it was much worse and the shops couldn’t be opened because it was their workers that were sick.
Everybody should be running low on certain stuff but should have had enough to make it for at least another week. I hope the stuff that people are trying to buy online are essentials and not just a case of people buying because they have the money and feel like eating something different or to satisfy a craving. The online orders should be for people that really need the goods so that the deliveries are getting to people that need them the most and not held up for superficial needs.
Who ever you are do you think this is a movie? I shopped for three weeks everyone expected to be out and about after the curfew with protocol. We thought it would be over. OK things change and we accepted that. We have to follow the rules but when you come with your nonsense about buy more than you need where are we going to store all that meat. I paid last month’s rent 850.00 for a one bedroom its almost another month I did not work to get pay, so tell me where am I getting the money to buy food? Every family is not the same, we only view life from what we can see why don’t you make a solution and shut us tired of the bull sh**! See how quick Government implement 7% and he silent on how we getting food.
I never said buy more than you need but you probably should buy extra during a pandemic. You don’t need frozen meat in order to survive so storage shouldn’t be an issue.You asked for a solution I’ll give you one. Stock up on some canned goods You dont have to worry about storage space as they can fit just about anywhere in the house and wont spoil anytime soon and its a lot cheaper than those frozen meat especially since you need to save some money. By the way government is also providing free food for all those that need but its only going to be basic goods so dont expect plenty of frozen meat.
I agree with you there
Well off you go there bragging with your super-rich condescending self, looking down on those who are less fortunate and not able to do the massive shopping that you can afford. Thank you for chastising the masses for not being able to buy more, when some were not even able to buy enough for two weeks, far less three. Go on with your rich self, with your mean, insensitive, unintelligent comment!
I’m sorry you felt my comment was condescending. Ps. I wasn’t bragging nor am I rich. It’s not too difficult to have food for 3 weeks. It just depends on your appetite, what you buy and making necessary sacrifices.
@ 007 please apologize for anything, they too damn greedy with entitlement mentality, most of the idiots on here complaining about food are foodies, they are gluttonous and greedy, some of them are one meal away from a diabetic coma.
This island has too many damn morbidly obese people and if you see the kids you do not have to wonder who are their parents are, there’s only two things food do to the body, it either build you or kill you, we should eat to live but in this island people live to eat, like damn termites.
Tell them to walk or exercise they look at you as if you the one on crack.
My husband has a niece just 21 with 5 rolls of fat in her stomach, fat jiggles when she walks, a diabetic also going blind but has to have 1 sliced bread for breakfast everyday.
I am deadly allergic to fat people especially the greedy a$$ ones on this island.
Talk the truth gal.
Fat shaming the people dem. I laughed but it hurt. God bless you. May god cure your allergy.
What about those who simply didnt have the finances to shop for extra days. As it is some barely were able to cater for the previous lockdowns. Is not as black and white as it seems
Govt should never have closed the food shops. If deliveries and curbside pick up had been available throughout lockdown, then we wouldn’t be in a position where most of the residents are going to need supplies before the end of this extended curfew. The only workable solution now appears to be to allow us all out to stock up and then lock us in for another 14 days. SMH.
I understand ur point but it makes no sense with this volume….IF THEY CAN GET OTHER WORKERS(TRMPORARY), same way ppl can go shop for their food….How do we kno if any of the temp workers aint positive……strupes.
This delivery thing is nonsense
hello everyone, I can see updates only for Onemart and RTW. By the way, I placed my order with Bobby todays morning. Could pls anyone confirm whether bobby will consider for online orders? Are they allowed to deliver supplies during lockdown? Unfortunately am not able to place one more order with others as both OM and RTW temoprolaly suspended online requests. We have already completely out of stock and can manage till tomorrow. After that, we will be in trouble. Please do the needful.
I will advise that you do not have a 24hrs corfu this can cause problems. Some residence do not food and medication. I know of a person in East end who needs HBP medication and they don’t have any means of getting it. Please, I know the importance of the knockdown but wisdom must be useful. Diabetic, high blood pressure, mental illness, dialysis etc. They are all critical complaints. Hunger and the needs of children care sanitary material is also an issue. All am asking is controlled given time to get some more items that is necessary.
However the decision you make is also good because we need to the apartment runways.
Why government tell us to shop with mask?
these super markets cannot handle this rush
Because you don’t know who run away from the apartment and you don’t know if they have the virus or not. They can be in the same line in front or behind of you at the grocery store.
Some tenants have money but refusing to pay the landlord whose only source of income is the rent they collect
How many times you want to post the same comment? Stups
Lie, ah you take enough from these foreigners, now you all seeing how Karma is the biggest Bit$h
One Tolian old hag told me standing in line at a grocery store that she planned on scamming this administration for money whether or not she got her rent or not.
Ah yo doing crap then blaming foreigners, nasty greedy hogs.
Sometimes I wonder why my mother birth me on this island amongst you nasty selfish idiots.
My father has apartments with all sorts of nationalities, Vincentians, Dominican republic, Dominicians , Lucians, Jamaicans and Guyanese and just yesterday he was telling me he never had a tenant who refused to pay, sometimes a little late no more than 2 weeks, and no Duck and hide like my own Tolians.
So please shut your piehole and quit lying on the people, if anyone’s not paying is our own kind.
If you born here you probably only spent a single night because no Tolian talk (write) like that. That first lie was a dead give away.
how you know she is a tolian and why would she just randomly talk to you? Old Tolians have pride not like y’all new age mixed up halfies. Go live in your homeland since you hate tortola and their people so much. Your people will welcome you with open arms. I never understood the logic, hate the nation so much but refuse to leave and get angry when told to leave. You should be stripped of your birthrights in tortola since you don’t know why you had to be born in this country.
Why govt cant just tell people wear mask to the store? No mask no shopping.
now is not the time for that, we know we owe for rent and it will be paid. stupes!
Ok,since you are a “honest Nancy”. That is wonderful that YOU will pay your rent, but there are many dishonest tenants out there and I know of a few who have not been paying their full rent from since last year(way before the virus)
Why are we seeing many volunteers and delivery workers without face masks?
Please be sanitary to avoid cross-contamination to others and house-to-house.
Wha kinda fuxxkery is this!we the people of the bvi need to write the commonwealth and complain about our civil rights being threatened. Then for the govenor to instigate freedom of speech. Dem quick to roll out 2mill$$, hurricane season on our heels and no income to the country. That’s the best plan, bigger countries than us(UK) let you shop daily with a soft curfew. Here goes my tax money to some who can buy and them can’t find money for increments what civil servants DONE WORK FOR! What ah set ah Jack.. Well with this just like Irma rashion and supermarkets can’t cope. People will go hungry and more angry. I WANT MY HARD EARNED OVER DUE MONEY
I ain’t wearing no mask. Get away from me fool.
Please offer a reward to people if they can lead the police to the cowards who ran away . An entire nation suffers while they hide … probably here illegally. Enough of this bullshit . Play tough for once and find them
Yall understand America has more deaths than our entire population has people? The government is trying their best in a situation THAT THEY HAVE NOT BEEN IN BEFORE. Yall got a problem here ? Well, if you got that american passport or green card, go to the land of free and do WHATEVER you please.
” Dem quick to roll out 2mill$$, tax dollars to some who can buy and them can’t find money for increments what civil servants DONE WORK FOR! “
The article is about the supermarkets’s deliveries. Yet the comments are mostly promoting racism. Why? Come on people, we can do better.
How is that online ordering working out for ah you?!
I basically think that supermarkets should have remain open daily keep the country on partial lockdown and also make it mandatory that all persons wear face mask on entering the store and also getting their hands sanitizer on entering and also keeping the 6ft distance what a relief it would be on the people….food is very important….so supermarkets should always remain open
What about those who simply didnt have the finances to shop for extra days. As it is some barely were able to cater for the previous lockdowns. Is not as black and white as it seems
Wednesday the 22nd still can’t get an order in.