My grandmother used to take me to the wet market on some days and I hated it. It was dirty and smelly, and all sorts of gunk made talsik on me 
Fast forward many years later, I still don’t like going to the palengke, but I do go if I have to, and then immediately take a shower and change clothes and clean my shoes as soon as I get home.
The wet market is still the best place to get the freshest seafood, and generally has cheaper prices on vegetables than supermarkets. And unlike supermarkets, there are many vendors to choose from if a vendor’s produce doesn’t meet your standards. It’s a dilemma, isn’t it? You want fresh seafood and cheaper vegetables, but the wet market experience is quite off-putting.
SHOP WET MARKETS ON HONESTBEE
Honestbee is the answer to this problem! You can order items from Farmer’s Market in Cubao, Alabang Wet Market, Pasig City Mega Market, and Carbon Public Market (Cebu) and Taboan Public Market (Cebu) through Honestbee!
There’s no need to go to the wet market yourself. Just order online in the comfort of your home or office. Honestbee’s Shopper Bees will pick your items for you and have them delivered to you at the time you choose.
Shopper Bees are trained to choose the best items for you – so if you are not confident in your fruit or fish picking skills, you can trust the Shopper Bees to choose for you. Just let them know what you need – will you be eating the bananas today or will you be eating them for the next few days? Let them know. For bananas to be eaten right away, they’ll choose ripe bananas. For bananas that will be eaten the next few days, they’ll choose a bunch that still has a tinge of green, not quite ripe, but should ripen in a few days.
The service has been available on Honestbee since last year (Farmer’s Market), but they’re expanding to include more wet markets in the roster.
NOTE: If you’re not familiar with how to use the app, I show how to use the app in my previous Honestbee S&R post. It’s almost the same except you don’t need to put a membership account when shopping for the wet market.
FARMER’S MARKET QUICK TOUR
We were invited to Farmer’s Market in Cubao to watch the Shopper Bees in action. The Shopper Bees showed us how they shopped for the freshest food items as specified by Honestbee customers.
We shopped for fruits and vegetables, whose stalls are located in the front area of the market. There’s like a “main road” in the middle of the market. The ground floor area in the front has the fruits and vegetable sellers.
As you go further in, you’ll see some stairs leading to the “lower ground” area. The right side has the meat section, the left side has the seafood. Most of the orders were for seafood so that’s where we went. There were live crabs and live tilapia, aside from the usual shrimp and fish.
A shopper bee checking out the fish:
The shopper bees use their version of the Honestbee app to see what their customers order:
After they’re done shopping for everything on the list, they prepare everything. They have an area where they stay and work. This is where they hand off the purchases to the riders for delivery ASAP.
Did you know that some of the Shopper Bees are married to the Honestbee riders? We learned that some of the riders’ wives saw the work that their husbands were doing and wanted to work for Honestbee, too. So it’s a family affair for some of the Honestbee riders and Shopper Bees.
PRICING & SHOPPING HOURS
Shopper Bees at the wet market are available to shop for you from 6AM until 5PM. As we all know, the freshest seafood arrives early in the morning. But if you’re not up to making an Honestbee order that early, just make your order the night before, and the Shopper Bees will take care of your order in the morning.
Honestbee has their list of accredited vendors in the wet market. Accredited vendors need to have the government requirements and should also be consistent in their product quality and availability. Because of this, the prices on Honestbee are slightly higher, I was told about 10%. If there are any major price fluctuations, the Shopper Bee will contact you to ask if you’ll be okay with the price change, so be available to answer them just in case. If the item you wanted to buy is not available, they will also inform you and ask if you want substitutions.
The Concierge Fee is P99, and there’s a small delivery fee (in my experience, it was P49 from Cubao to Sta. Mesa, but it might change based on distance), which will depend on your location. If you reach the minimum of P2,500, DELIVERY IS FREE. If you want to buy from the wet market but don’t like going there, it might be worth your while to use Honestbee’s service – it’s more convenient, and you save on gas & parking, too 🙂
