Alice.com

I first heard about alice.com when a former co-worker mentioned it in his departure email. He said he was leaving the company to pursue opportunities to work at an internet start-up, headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin of all places. I've been following the progress of the site via http://blog.alice.com/ and liked the feel of it enough to be notified when they went live. Earlier this week they did, and yesterday I went online to check it out.

The ordering experience was just that - an experience, and a good one. They first ask what type of household essentials you typically buy, then automatically create a shopping list for you. The list take on the the form of a "Shoot the duck" carnival game in a nicely done graphical interface. It sounds a bit cheesy when I write it but there was no cheese in the experience. Each duck represents a specific item - deodorant, body wash, facial tissue, etc. As you add an item to your cart, a picture of it replaces the duck on your ordering dashboard. You're also prompted if you'd like a reminder when the item might run low (with the option to select 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 months, etc).

They have all the major name brands you'd find at your local Walgreens or CVS as well as a number of environmental friendly products you wouldn't normally find. Coupons were automatically applied to the items that were eligible. Shipping is always free and the prices seemed quite competitive. From start to finish, the ordering experience was smooth and felt natural.

I placed my first order around 11am yesterday and received my items less than 24 hours later from a warehouse in Indianapolis (according to the UPS tracking website). I'll definitely be using the site again and suggest you check out alice.com the next time you're running low on dish soap, q-tips, shampoo, etc.