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Origins and Background
Greg Land founded ShopFoodEx in 2001 in Roanoke, VA. Greg’s original concept was to offer a quick and convenient way for local Roanoker’s to do their grocery shopping. With much anticipation and headlines Greg and business partner Jeremy Barker completed their first home delivery in Roanoke, VA in November of 2003. It wasn’t long before we were getting orders from all over the country….which were promptly cancelled as we were at that time a local home delivery company. Yet, the orders kept coming in….so we quickly had our “light bulb” moment and had the website redesigned to accommodate both local and nationwide customers.
We continued to offer both services until February 2008 when we made the decision to discontinue the less lucrative local home delivery service. A difficult, but correct decision that has allowed us to better focus on our more popular nationwide service. Proudly, our mail order grocery delivery business has grown every year, and today, in the most difficult of economic times, our business is up over 82% from last year (2008).
Keys to Success
We truly believe that the key to our continued growth is our commitment to offer our customers not only the everyday basics, but also unique specialty items, hard to find favorites, and the newest grocery items to hit the market. We take an inordinate amount of pride in listening to our customers varied and often unique requests, checking with our various distributors, and then adding those items to our website. Many of our best selling items are a direct result of this attention to detail. Odds are, if you are looking for an item that you can’t find in your local store then so are countless others….so don’t be afraid to ask!
Our Limitations…and yes we do have some.
Although we have nearly 8,000 items on our website you will undoubtedly notice what we do not carry as well. You will not find fresh produce, breads, frozen foods, or any items requiring refrigeration. You will also not find huge bags of dog food (we do have cans), pails of kitty litter, or 12 packs of soda (or soda's of any kind). We know that there are some who do offer these items…but we have chosen not to. Quite simply, to do so, would mean that we would need to significantly raise prices across the board to cover the shipping costs associated with these items. As baseball legend Pete Rose said “do what you are capable of doing and don’t try to be something you are not.“
Customer Service
We at ShopFoodEx take pride in exceeding our customer's expectations and providing friendly service for each and every customer. If it’s not right, we are committed to making it right. |
