Working for a Living | Groceries, convenience and peace of mind

For anybody on the Grand Strand who has ever felt too overwhelmed by the constraints of their schedule to even consider a proper trip to the grocery store – or for those who for whatever reason are unable to leave their homes, newcomer Danny Raymo has you covered – adding a little wiggle room to those daunting, busy days.

No more staring blankly into the fridge, hoping something yummy will magically appear.

Raymo recently expanded the reach of a grocery shopping and delivery service called WeGoShop.com into the Myrtle Beach area.

“I like to think of it as sort of a peace of mind thing for a lot of people,” he said, adding that a component of the business focuses on the homebound. “Our society is getting older and living longer, and of course there is always the fierce independence. We don’t want to be tied to an assisted-living facility or a nursing home if we can help it. We will fight tooth and nail to stay independent.”

Help is a phone call away, and Raymo doesn’t just hit up the grocery store. He can make multiple stops for his clients – including the dry cleaner, the post office or perhaps the liquor store. “They are able to sit at home and relax – and everything is coming to them. They don’t have to go out and fight traffic or weather,” he said.

WeGoShop.com also appeals to adult children living in other states who have retired parents living here.

“They prefer someone to be an extra set of eyes for their parents that have moved down here. I have people asking if I could arrange a grocery service for their parents on a monthly rotation. It’s almost a wellness check, too – and that’s sort of like an extra set of eyes and ears. You are delivering the groceries and making sure the parents are OK at the same time.”

Having come from a background in the food and beverage industry – including a stint with Marriott Corporation [now under the banner of multinational conglomerate Sodexho] – most notably as general manager of food services at the University of Vermont at Burlington.

He also owned a liquor store for roughly 15 years.

Raymo says he had the idea for a grocery delivery service and was prepared to go it alone when his wife found WeGoShop.com online.

“They already have a system in place, and I could use the technical support – so I partnered with this franchise. This made things a lot easier and more convenient,” he said.

For Raymo, it’s all about building relationships, something that was ingrained in him from when his parents owned a grocery store. And this helps with his new undertaking.

“You get to know people’s wants and needs on an individual basis,” he said. “For instance – I’m going to have Hellman’s Mayonnaise and Heinz Ketchup no matter what. I relish the thought of coming to see people face-to-face to get an overview and go from there.”

WeGoShop.com can also be a boon for busy professionals.

“Let’s say a doctor and a lawyer are also husband and wife. They just don’t have the time. For them it’s sort of a godsend to have everything waiting for them when they come home. You schedule the delivery for when somebody will be there and make the process seamless.”

And the possibilities abound when it comes to folks coming down for vacations.

“You have a lot of people coming in for a week’s stay in vacation homes. The refrigerators are empty, and they don’t want to go from the airport to the store. If they give me a call, I can do their order ahead of time and their refrigerator will have everything they wanted.”

Raymo maintains a coupon library for the service’s coupon sharing program – splitting the savings.

“If I can save $18 on their trip, they will get a $9 savings – and they don’t have to lift a finger to do it. It is part and parcel of what they are going to get from my service,” he said.

He also uses in-house savings cards for all of the local stores and will gladly use a customer’s card so that they can reap the benefits of that card such as savings on gas. There is no markup on groceries, but rather what a press release called a modest shopping fee – and Raymo said that multiple stops can be negotiated.

Raymo hails from northern New York, 60 miles south of Montreal. His son has lived here for six years, and Raymo is the advance man for his wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandson, who will follow him down here soon. He has been here for almost three months.

“We would come to visit my son, and we fell in love with the area. The Adirondack winters were starting to get to me,” he said. “Three months ago I was driving in ice storms.”

For more information, hit up www.wegoshop.com.

This story was originally published July 20, 2015 at 1:32 AM with the headline "Working for a Living | Groceries, convenience and peace of mind."