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Online grocery shopping speeds up Thanksgiving meal prep

Posted at 4:58 PM, Nov 23, 2016
and last updated 2016-11-23 22:23:04-05

 When it comes to cooking thanksgiving dinner, time management is key. 

A growing trend of online shopping is helping cut down on some of the meal making stress.

At the Hy-Vee 180th and pacific in Omaha. 

Sandie Hennessey fills her cart. But this isn't for her.

Hennessey is a personal shopper, filling online orders for grocery store customers who sent their shopping list online.

On an average day, she fills about 40 orders. She says since Saturday, it's been almost double that.

"it’s been really busy the last few days’ people are really taking advantage of it,” Hennessey said.

While most of shopping still takes place in the brick and mortar aisles of a store.

About 5 percent of U.S. consumers preferred shopping for groceries online.

U.S. online grocery sales totaled about 7 billion dollars last year.

They're expected to rise to 18 billion dollars by 2020.

For stores like Hy-Vee, it means ramping up the staff to cover online orders.

“Our customers really love the convenience of it so they are very last minute. I would say the majority of our orders have come in Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday”, said Tally Mertes with Hy-Vee

They're not the only ones.

Just this year, Walmart launched online grocery in 6 of their stores across the metro, they've also launched a mobile app where you can go online order your items, and they drop it off to your car.

"For the holiday season we know that a lot of people are kind of in a time crunch, so we've made it a goal as a company to offer all of the items customers as wanting for their holiday dinner. So you can buy everything from your groceries to your gravy boat to your wine,” said Cynthia Owen with WalMart.

At the Walmart off 180th and center, shoppers pull up and get their groceries loaded and go. 

While shoppers like sally hit the next order.

Making the thanksgiving meal a piece of cake or should we say piece of pumpkin pie. 

In Omaha, you can order online for Hy-Vee, they do pickup and delivery until midnight.

And at Walmart you could order up until 8pm tonight to pick up in store.