When Justin Shaw graduated from MSU in December 2006, he never thought he would be bagging groceries.
But when Shaw and his roommate, Adam McGuire, started Spartan Grocery 2 Go last month, those plans changed.
Partners open grocery delivery service
Lansing Community College graduate Adam McGuire, left, and MSU alumnus Justin Shaw grab bags of groceries out of a van to deliver to a customer Wednesday afternoon. McGuire and Shaw recently started Spartan Grocery 2 Go, a grocery delivery business where customers can shop online for groceries to be delivered.
“One morning I just woke up and was thinking, (with) the amount of money we dish out for fast food and delivery, if there was a service where we could get groceries — because I’m lazy — I would use it,” Shaw said.
The pair takes grocery orders through their Web site, spartangrocery.com, and delivers them directly to customers. They started the operation Jan. 28.
Bobby Talbot, a political science and pre-law senior, heard of the site from his roommate and placed an order during Wednesday’s snowstorm.
“It’s pretty much (that) the convenience is awesome,” Talbot said. “The prices are good, so there’s really no downside to it.”
A list of items organized by categories ranging from beverages to household items to tobacco is on the site’s home page.
Once a customer checks out, Shaw and McGuire are sent a message with the order and payment, which is made through PayPal. When Spartan Grocery 2 Go receives the order, a call is placed to the customer estimating delivery time, which is typically one or two hours.
“When ordering stuff online, a lot of people don’t have confidence that their order was received,” McGuire said. “We call them to ease that a bit.”
The company’s biggest sellers have been beverages and tobacco.
In the past week, the friends have had to tweak their business. After losing money on small orders, a $3 delivery charge was added.
“We initially started with no delivery charge,” Shaw said. “But people were burning us with ordering a pack of smokes or something. So we did it for the first week, just to get our name out there, but we just can’t operate at a loss.”
They also have added to their menu based on customer requests.
Despite multiple requests, Spartan Grocery 2 Go hasn’t been able to add alcoholic beverages. The city of East Lansing hasn’t given them permission to sell alcohol, McGuire said.
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Since the site opened, they have added three pages of suggested items, McGuire said.
“We’re trying to be very involved with our customers,” he said. “We’re not big business moguls. We’re regular college kids.”
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