Grocery Hacking: Automate Your Grocery Shopping Using the Robot Framework

I used Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate my grocery shopping so that I can spend less time shopping.

Image credit: Author

My family and I are lucky enough to live in a Seattle neighborhood with 7 supermarkets that are each within walking distance. So, it wasn’t until the pandemic hit, and we were wishing to minimize our contact with others, that we started experimenting with grocery delivery. Like many others, we started working from home and we could now be available to receive deliveries at any time, it just seemed like a no-brainer to give grocery delivery a try.

At the time, the first grocery store in our area to offer delivery, which wasn’t the megacorp that is Amazon, was Fred Meyer, through a partnership with Instacart. Our initial experience was pretty good and we figured that the delivery cost of an extra 15% of the total bill was worth the extra safety of a contact-free delivery. We used Fred Meyer’s delivery service weekly for about 9 months and during this time we learned that it had its shortcomings. We found that Fred Meyer’s online inventory was often out of sync with its actual inventory, which meant that we could easily receive substitutions, or items would just be missing from the delivery as they were out of…