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A locally owned grocer was the first in the South Valley to roll out curbside pickup last month, according to Skip Nugent, owner of Best Buy Market.

“People are in such a big hurry these days, we wanted to have that convenience for them,” Nugent said.

Best Buy Market, which has locations in Hanford, Visalia and Lemoore, partnered with Rosie, an online app based out of New York that coordinates with grocery stores across the nation to offer online orders for pickup and delivery, though for the time being, Best Buy Market is only offering pickup.

For minimum purchases of $30, customers can create a free account and browse through the website to get live, up-to-date pricing on all of the store’s inventory.

“Rosie takes care of everything,” Nugent said.

The order goes through the app manager and is then sent to the order picker who pulls the order according to a time the customer picks. Once the order is arranged, a confirmation number is sent to the customer and with that, the customer pulls into a designated stall where the employee drops the order directly to the customer. The customer doesn’t even need to come into the store. The order waits in a refrigerator for the customer to arrive and so workers try to pull the order not more than an hour before pickup is scheduled.

When it comes to fresh produce, people can be particular.

“Our pickers in-store are very knowledgeable and they try to pick the best quality produce,” Nugent said. On top of the picker, another employee provides a second level quality check.

Getting Rosie integrated into the store’s point-of-sale system did have its difficulties, according to Nugent, so the company took some time before going live with the software.

“There’s a lot of moving parts behind it,” said Nugent, ”with our POS system, with Rosie and with our wholesaler.”

Between September and February, when they signed the contract and first offered pickup to customers, the website was built to coordinate with in-store inventory to make sure everything was accurate.

“Getting all the images and pricing correct was the hardest part to make sure they were in sync with the pricing in the store,” Nugent said.

But now that the system is live, Nugent feels he is ready for the future.

“I plan on it being a long-term thing,” Nugent said. “As people are busier in their day-to-day activities, it’s an added convenience to be able to keep that customer and hopefully get new ones because of that convenience.”

To announce the new offering, Best Buy Market started a focused marketing campaign, doing print advertising, in-store advertising as well as using social media.

“The marketing campaign to get it launched is really helping,” Nugent said.

Since they rolled out in the beginning of February, they’ve had about 180 people sign up for the app, and between Monday and Wednesday of this week, they’ve done about 8 orders, and Nugent expects it to only go up from there.