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Kroger's Digital Struggle

joshstrange.com

41–50 of 80 posts

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#41

Am I the only one who doesn’t like infinite scrolling?

I especially don't like it on mobile because it can shift the entire view a lot more, and lead to misclicks. A misclick on mobile might take 2-3x the time to get back where you were compared to desktop.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#42

Instacart / Shipt I’ve given up on using 1st party grocery store website/app. I just use Instacart or Shipt now instead, due to better UI/UX. Which is sad for the grocery store because it creates a situation of they become a nameless supplier & you longer have loyalty/affinity anymore.

Instacart's markup is insane, it's like DoorDash levels of extraction for some hitherto unexplained value they allege to provide.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#43

Instacart / Shipt I’ve given up on using 1st party grocery store website/app. I just use Instacart or Shipt now instead, due to better UI/UX. Which is sad for the grocery store because it creates a situation of they become a nameless supplier & you longer have loyalty/affinity anymore.

I’ve considered it many times but they cost 25-30%+ more which I can’t stomach even with a better UI/UX.

$100 instacart gift card for $80-$85 bucks from Costco and other retailers really helps bring down the cost difference for me.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#44
I feel like the retail grocery industry as a whole is opposed to anything that doesn't get people into the stores, which are designed to maximize profits based on impulse buying. The industry dies without impulse buying. And I'm sort of an expert considering I worked at a grocery store in high school. LOLOLOLOL

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#45
My beef with Kroger (since I have nowhere else to put it) is twofold:

1. The Kroger sign on doesn't work with Firefox, so the in-app Kroger SSO thing doesn't work for me. I had to temporarily switch my browser to chrome to log in.

2. They changed the pickup method from sms to in-app. Problem is that not everybody who does curb-side pickup is the same person who has the app installed and logged in. I used to have my wife order and I could confirm presence for pickup from my phone (even a different number!). Now I need to tell my wife to log in, press the button, and tell her what stall I'm parked at.

Both of these didn't used to be a problem as of about a year ago, these are recent regressions in functionality.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#46
> Not its fellow grocers, of which there seem to be few

And that's the key. There isn't any competition. Instacart and shipt aren't competition. You are still buying groceries from your local Kroger brand. What it would take to push for real improvement is if another grocery store had an app that was enough better than Kroger's that people preferred to shop at that store instead of Kroger's.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#47
post #36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh, it at least has its advantage, that you can apply loyalty and payment at the same time. I know Walgreens integrated their loyalty with Apple Wallet too, but in practice that means you have to (ensuring unlocked-ness both times) present the phone to the reader once before the cashier puts it into the payment "mode" and again after. KP is annoying that it takes a couple taps to get its barcode on your screen but a…

You can link the loyalty to the credit card number. You can have more that one loyalty linked to it and just ask the user which one to apply it to. HomeDepot and the USPS both will send me an email receipt and they remember my address when I put in a credit card.

I could be wrong here, but I don't see how that approach could work efficiently in this case. When the terminal is ready to read your credit card, it has a total 'in mind' already at every place I've ever shopped.

The supermarket, on the other hand, needs your loyalty info first, to decide whether to give you the "sale" price on a bunch of things, and to also redeem coupons. Not only is this convenient, so you can see and confirm expected prices as things ring up, but importantly, your loyalty situation will obviously change the total.

I guess this could be done by authing the worst-case amount and then capturing only the amount you really owe after any "savings" -- but ohhhh boy I can already imagine how many people would be using debit cards and be FREAKED OUT that "Kroger put a hold on my account for more than my grocery bill!!"

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#48
post #47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can link the loyalty to the credit card number. You can have more that one loyalty linked to it and just ask the user which one to apply it to. HomeDepot and the USPS both will send me an email receipt and they remember my address when I put in a credit card.

I could be wrong here, but I don't see how that approach could work efficiently in this case. When the terminal is ready to read your credit card, it has a total 'in mind' already at every place I've ever shopped. The supermarket, on the other hand, needs your loyalty info first, to decide whether to give you the "sale" price on a bunch of things, and to also redeem coupons. Not only is this convenient, so you can se…

One way is the moment you give it the credit card it adjusts prices and tells you "You saved $$$", and shows the new total "Approve/Deny".

> When the terminal is ready to read your credit card, it has a total 'in mind' already at every place I've ever shopped.

Only the cheap ones. At Costco I put in and remove my cedit card before they scan anything at all, then when they are done I tell them "already entered it". And the transaction goes through. It's way faster than waiting for the total.

I'm actually annoyed when I go to a store that makes me wait till the total is ready - I'd rather enter the card while the clerk is ringing up my items, and have my hands free and ready to go the second they scan the last time.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#49

Instacart / Shipt I’ve given up on using 1st party grocery store website/app. I just use Instacart or Shipt now instead, due to better UI/UX. Which is sad for the grocery store because it creates a situation of they become a nameless supplier & you longer have loyalty/affinity anymore.

Instacart's markup is insane, it's like DoorDash levels of extraction for some hitherto unexplained value they allege to provide.

I mean, they are popular, right? Someone must be deriving value or else so many people wouldn't be using Instacart.

Re: Kroger's Digital Struggle

#50
Hmm kroger delivery has been working well for me, and glad they are increasingly offering non instacart fulfillment. A little clunky in the UI? Fine, I’ll take that over a polished app that changes the prices on me.
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