Most of you would have heard about ShopBaby by now, the online mobile app that allows you to shop all your baby essentials from the comfort of your home! It’s a pretty ingenious concept really, if you think about how many moms will find any excuse not to go to the shops unless absolutely necessary. And even then, there are so many reasons why poking your own eye out sounds more appealing than actually getting there.
Here are just a few scenarios off the top of my head, where a service like this makes so much sense :
- The tired new mom still recovering from birth who can’t drive for 6 weeks after a c-section and whose husband is working late.
- The tired new mom who can’t face putting on make-up or getting dressed to face the world. Yup that was me, track pants and no make-up for the first month at least! This way you only need to worry about facing one person, the delivery guy!
- The mom with more than one child who can’t face hauling them all into the car just to get a pack of nappies, some wet wipes and baby food.
- The mom with too much on the go ( like every mom since the history of time!), with older kids who need lifts to all ends of the earth and can’t face adding another thing to the to-do-list.
- The mom who remembered dinner for their family but forgot the most crucial thing on the shopping list earlier today : Nappies!
- The mom who is resides in areas with rainy cold winters and doesn’t want to take their baby out in horrible weather.
- The mom who shares a car with her husband and would spend more money Ubering there and back, with the added hassle of securing her baby into a carseat to accompany them on the journey.
- The mom who works and leaves her baby in the care of a nanny, but hasn’t remembered lunch for their baby and who lives too far from the shops for their nanny to walk.
SO many situations that I can think of where service like this is literally the answer to all your problems.
ShopBaby picks up your location and gives you the closest mall/shop in your vicinity, allowing you to shop anything from medicine (Not prescriptions meds, although they have plans to get to that stage), food, nappies, wet wipes and toiletries. Without having to move or lift more than your finger, you can have these goods delivered to your door in as little as 60 minutes!
I decided to test it out and I had so many moms tune in for my Insta Stories where I walked them through my “shop” and the ordering process. I had 278 moms vote “Yes!” to wanting to know more and so I timed the delivery from the moment my order was accepted. There was a slight glitch with the system picking up my order the first time – (I was warned that they were experiencing some minor glitches, but that their tech team was doing their best to fix it!) and so I ended up placing my order again. (Not a train smash when you see how easy it is!) It arrived in 70 minutes, which in my books is pretty good. In that time I managed to feed my baby, feed myself, hang some washing on the line, do homework with my 7 year-old and sit in the garden playing with all three kids as we waited for our delivery to arrive. I managed to do all of that because someone else was doing the “dirty” work for me. A service which they only charge R45 for!
Some of you may argue that that’s a steep price to pay if you could just get the stuff when you are at the shops but here’s how I justify it:
- This may be purely an emergency service for some, in which case R45 is very little when you think about the peace of mind it offers you in situations like this this.
- You can’t put a price on sanity – Home life with three kids can be somewhat of a circus and your capacity for each child is limited. Convenience is a wonderful thing when time is not on your side.
- If I had to uber to get these things myself, it would have cost me R40 one way.
- If I had to drive myself it would have cost me close to R20 in petrol return. Plus parking.
- I was able to concentrate on doing the things that make me happy and things that made the rest of our evening that much more manageable. Instead of rushing back to the shops, I was able to invest that time into being with my kids, preparing a healthy dinner and doing homework. It’s like a domino effect, this one action effected everything thereafter.
My one piece of advice would be that I would encourage moms to ensure their oder is large enough to make the R45 delivery fee worthwhile. Don’t make an order for one pack of wet wipes, that makes no sense. ShopBaby is affiliated with Dischem and you know their prices are good and competitive, so make sure you buy a few items to make it worthwhile, items that you will need for the weeks and months ahead. It helps to know that only once items are delivered, with a till slip, is money debited from your account.
At this stage the only downside to their service is that their product choices are somewhat limited. I have been assured that this is soon to change and that more and more of our favourite baby products are going to be added to their online shop. Also they are sadly only available in the Fourways area in JHB, and in Southern Suburbs in Cape Town. They are currently only able to deliver up to 10km from Fourways Mall (JHB) and Cavendish Square (Cape Town). HOWEVER this is only the beginning stages and they will be expanding to include the CBD and Northern suburbs eventually too!!
So how would I rate this service? It gets an impressive 9.5 out of 10 for us! With room to grow I feel that with time, this service will only begin to exceed every mom’s expectations as they learn to rely on such a service as a way to make life with babies and kids that much easier.
Watch this video to see exactly how easy it is and Download their app on Google Play and App Store from your phone!
Let me know your thoughts, we would love to hear back from you! ♥
*Discalimer : I was not paid to write this by ShopBaby, I was however allocated a budget to test out their service and experience it first-hand. All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.
Hi I’m Leigh! Did you enjoy reading this post? I really hope so and would love you to stick around a little longer! Please feel free to browse my blog for other articles or to keep up with all the latest news and to be the first to hear about some great competitions, come and find me me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also email me directly at leeloobaggins@hotmail.com or simply subscribe below and never worry about missing out!
