In this Metrobyte "Plugged In" TV segment, host Scott interviews cyber‑culture writer Courtney Pulitzer about the emerging world of online food commerce in 1998. Courtney demonstrates three representative websites: GreatFood.com, a gourmet specialty retailer offering unique items like olive oils, gift‑packaged foods, and perishable products shipped with dry‑ice and overnight delivery; Chili Today/Hot Tamale, a niche site focused on spicy snacks, dried chilies, pretzels, and recipe content that educates shoppers; and NetGrocer, a more conventional online grocery that mimics a brick‑and‑mortar aisle layout, uses a shopping‑cart metaphor, and provides standard checkout and FedEx shipping options (next‑day to five‑day delivery). Throughout the demo, the hosts discuss the convenience, variety, and cost‑saving potential of buying food online, while addressing common consumer skepticism about shipping speed, back‑orders, and handling of perishable goods. The segment closes with a viewer giveaway tied to the show’s earlier gaming discussion, encouraging audience interaction.
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Hey, welcome back to Plugged In. You know, there's an entire world of mouthwatering food on the web that can be shipped to your door whenever you want it. Gourmet stores, specialty shops, and even supermarkets are starting to get in on the e-commerce experience. Joining us tonight is Courtney Pulitzer, the publisher of the Cyber Scene newsletter. She's been cyber food shopping. She's here to show us what she's found. Welcome.
Thanks, Scott.
Good to have you.
Thank you.
It's nice being here. You know, I never think about— we have all this delicious food here in front of us. I feel like, "Julia Child, we're about to do something." Right. But, you know, I never think about buying food on the internet. I don't think most people do. So, um, and it also seems to be a big variety.
Yeah.
Now, you've picked out 3 sites that are really kind of the key sites to go to, and you're gonna have to convince me because Whenever I think about food shopping, I always look in the cupboard and I feel like I gotta run out and get something. Oh, no, no, no, no.
By the end of this segment, you will be buying everything online and certainly all of your groceries.
Alright.
I know because I can never get home when it's time to do the grocery shopping on time because I'm always out doing the cyber scene stuff.
That's right. That's right. You know, because you're such a socialite. So this is very, very handy for you.
So, and actually the first site that we're going to look at, greatfood.com, is a great site because it's all gourmet and specialty items.
Perfect.
So, for instance, even if you were to go to your grocery store in the neighborhood, you wouldn't find some of the really fun things that are here. Like they have all all these special gourmet olive oils, um, for instance.
Yeah, all kinds of things that, uh, that you don't think about buying until you actually go on the internet.
Right.
You're entertaining the Pope or Mayor Giuliani's coming over and you gotta have something a little extra special.
That's right. And the thing is, you know, you're looking at the site and you're browsing around and it's not like you just have to go straight through some aisle and you can see all these specials like, "Hey, Restaurant Lulu, what do they have there?" And you see all these fun olive oils.
Okay.
So you can go and click on that.
All right, so you can click on that, and we actually have these right here in the studio with us tonight, right over here in this lovely arrangement.
Aren't those beautiful? Look at that.
This really is fantastic looking stuff, and you can see right at the top here, they've melted a candle on the top. You're not going to get that at DeGrustini's.
No, you're not. It's really, really nice.
And it looks— I'll tell you, I'm going to be— as soon as the show's over, I'll be taking this stuff with me. It looks fabulous.
It is. And then they've also got other things, like you can get lobster tails. From this site.
Lobster tails.
Frozen lobster tails, which we have right there.
And this is one of the ones that I was really skeptical about because it's sort of, how are you going to actually get a perishable food like this? Now you can see it's— here are the lobster tails. Two of these are wrapped here. We've unwrapped a couple of them, so the fresh ones are there. And if we could take a look, when they come, they come in this giant crate like this. It's filled with dry ice.
And it's dry ice.
It comes overnight.
Lots of packaging that they put in there.
That's right. So it's a little bit— it feels like a little bit of overkill, but it really works because these are still cold.
Yeah, yeah, and they're—
and they got here, I think, in March, so, you know, that's pretty good.
They're very well frozen. So, and as you might have seen, I just did a little search for lobster tails. You can search like that. You can— they have other things like gift finder by price or, you know, special occasions, appetizers. So there's all different ways that you can search around this site.
Right, and if you want to send a gift of food, there's all kinds of gift, you know, special gift packaging and wrapping and things like that, so it's very easy to do.
That's right. Yeah, lots of nice features. And actually, a lot of the websites have those options where you can do gift boxes and gift packages and things like that.
Anything in particular on this site in terms of the gifts that you like?
Um, just, you know, the variety. You know, there's all sorts of neat things like the barbecue shop, the Fourth of July, you can get some chocolates. Um, you know, so they have all sorts of good things.
Great.
Yeah, that you wouldn't necessarily think about.
So that's, uh, so that's greatfoods.com. You can also get things like, um, we have other items here. Like, here's another. I think this came from Great Foods, right?
Yeah, that's right.
We've got that gift This is a, this is a box filled with fish, uh, believe it or not. They all— you can see there's fish right here on the box. And, uh, it comes out, you know, down here we have a plate here with the salmon on it.
Um, and, uh, so you can get, you can get all sorts of good things. We're trying to find it here on the website, but it's, it's a little more, it's a little more hidden.
Well, okay, let's move on because we've got so much that we could do. Let's go to Chili Today.
I was going to just, um, go there to Chili Today Hot Tamale, which is a nice, um nice fun site because it's all specialized. So for instance, Great Foods, if you don't really know what kind of specialty item you want. And Chili Today has all these great, you know, spices, seasoned pretzels, all hot stuff.
My father used to say it's food that makes the top of your head sweat.
That's right.
That's right.
You're gonna be sweating when you eat those spicy pretzels.
So what else can you get? We get now, you mentioned pretzels. Is this what we're talking about here?
That's right.
These pretzels here.
They're right there.
And we have a lovely bowl filled with pretzels.
Yummy little snacks right there. They've got recipes, salsas, you can actually buy the dried chilies.
These look delicious, by the way. These are the dried chili peppers.
Why don't you have one of those, Jeff?
We're gonna have a contest right after the show to see how many people on the crew can eat these without steam coming out of their head. These look delicious.
Yeah, so—
So again, this is a specialty food vendor, and you can get all kinds of items in particular here, things that you're not gonna be able to find at the grocery store, per se.
That's right, yeah, lots of specialized things. And you'll see they have like a little chili primer, There's stuff about how to cook with chilies.
So you can learn sort of about this stuff. So again, it's the internet kind of combining getting the products but also with information and learning. Right. But let's say we want to get— we have other stuff up here that remind— you know, this is the stuff I can get at the grocery store. Sure. Do people really do regular grocery shopping?
They really do, yeah. For instance, this is at NetGrocer. NetGrocer.
Right.
Let me just get to the home page there. So NetGrocer is one of a few like big online grocery stores.
Okay.
There's a few others, and they're all pretty similar. They have the sort of shopping motif of going down aisles. You can see that they have specials, and then here's where you can get like your basic groceries.
Okay.
And these sites are really actually quite useful if, for instance, you can just stock up on things, and if you don't want to have to always run out every time you're running out of wheat germ or something.
Right. Well, let's— Okay, let's shop for a couple of items because now again, You know, this is— all of the internet uses a shopping cart metaphor, but this is where it really applies because this is where you use a shopping cart.
That's right.
So let's get an item or two, drop it into the cart, and then check out just to show people how easy it is.
Okay, so for instance, let's say we're going to get some canned peaches.
Okay.
So you click on fruit or canned items and then fruits.
See the peaches there? See the little peaches?
Down here you'll see they light up. Here's peaches and pears.
Alright.
And then here you get to see all of the various options that you could get. There's light peach cup, sliced peaches, all those sorts of things. And when you click buy, if you notice that gray bar at the bottom of the screen, that's where you'll start seeing all the different items that you're buying. And you can see we just bought something that's only 89 cents.
I think we should get 20 cans of peaches.
Let's get, you know, let's get some other sliced peaches, and then, yeah, let's get 5 of them. And then, um, and then we'll get 20 prunes.
Okay, so, you know, people can go through here. It's nice that you can see pictures of the products. You click through, you click. Now, how do we check out once we filled up our virtual boat?
Okay, well, you go down here, you can view your shopping cart, and then once you see all the items you've chosen and think it's okay, no changes, don't need to update, just click checkout.
And this is very pretty familiar to people that have done this.
Right.
This is where it gets pretty familiar. The question I have is, if I'm buying a special item, I'll be a skeptic for a minute, am I really— how fast does this stuff get here? I mean, does it take a week? Does it take a month? Is it backordered?
It's, um, I mean, I suppose it's like any grocery store. If there's a backorder, there's a backorder. But usually, for instance, NetGrocer, they ship via FedEx. So you can get it next day, you can get it in the regular time frame, which is, I think, 5 days. So there's all sorts of options, and then your shipping and handling, of course, is dependent on all those options.
But obviously you're saving money because you don't have the brick-and-mortar cost of a store. So even with shipping and handling, hopefully it's going to be cheaper.
That's right.
Well, this is fantastic. We certainly have a lot of good stuff ready for us after the show. Courtney, thank you for coming on and showing us the wonderful world of food on the internet. Oh, you're welcome. Um, well, it's come to that special time, the time when the viewer has a chance to win tonight's Metro Megabyte Giveaway. Now, the 3 internet games we reviewed earlier in the show are our prize tonight, so if you were paying attention, what we were telling you about Ultima Online, you should be able to get our question right. So here's the question, get ready, get those pens ready. What kind of online game is always processing and changing even when you are not there? The first person that calls with the correct answer will win. So give us a call now at 877-674-METRO. We're gonna start to dive in, eat some food, but when we come back, we'll see if we have a winner. We'll be taking your frequently asked questions. So if you have a question, give us a call at 877-674-METRO. Stick around, we're coming back.
