One of the newest apps I've downloaded for my phone is the Kroger mobile app. It's got some nice features, many of those that you'd expect from an app from a grocery store. What I'm wondering though is if the people who have developed the app (or more accurately perhaps, the higher-ups that commissioned the app to be built) ever gone grocery shopping themselves?
Our local Kroger store has recently undergone a huge upgrade, face-lift and expansion. I love all the changes! The only challenge is that they've moved just about everything around from where it used to be located and I spend far more time than I should looking for stuff when I'm on a normal shopping trip. For me a "normal" shopping trip is one where you've got a list with a number of items instead of just running in for a few items you need quickly.
The last time I was at the store my wife had sent me a list of things she needed via text. For this trip the list consisted of maybe 20 items. I found myself going back and forth across the store as I worked down through the list. I tried mentally to scan the list when I first looked at it so I could pick up items in some what of an organized fashion as I worked through the different departments. The additional challenge to this trip was working through my list and still being unfamiliar with the new layout of our store. Then it hit me.
Kroger has a mobile app. The mobile app allows me to put in my Kroger Plus card so I can track my fuel rewards. My wife and both use the Kroger Plus card so all of the points add up together. Remind me sometime to write about how we maximize our fuel point savings.
Why wouldn't the Kroger app allow my wife to install the app on her phone, build a list of things she needs and then that list be available on my own Kroger app? Now, that wouldn't be too tough by itself, but here's where the real Kroger magic could come into play. Now, what if Kroger could take that list and organize it in a way that I could walk into the store and work my way from one end to another in the most efficient way possible picking up all the items on my list as I go? The other obvious logic to me would be to pick up the frozen foods last so that they wouldn't be melting as I work through the rest of my list.
I think I should also be able to create a shopping list via the full website on my laptop. I'd imagine getting the weekly ad and viewing it online and then being able to build my shopping list from the online circular. As I think even more, what if the printed version of the weekly ad had QR codes for each item that I could scan and build my shopping list without having to type anything in. Or, maybe being able to scan UPC code on products I know I'm out of at home and add those to my list as I go throughout the week.
Is that too much to ask? It seems to me like it would be a fairly simple logic to produce? Hopefully someone from Kroger will read this and look at adding these features into their next version of the app.
These are all great ideas! The only problem I can think of with those is that it would allow us to shop more efficiently so we get in and out of the store quickly. We would not be wandering aimlessly up and down every aisle putting unnecessary items in our carts, spending more money.
You’re right Heather. Another friend of mine commented the same thing on my Facebook post about the ideas. I agree that the display marketing mentality does happen. They can still place the dairy case at the back of the store to make me walk through the store for the staples I come in for regularly. However, have you noticed many stores have started putting a smaller dairy case right by the front? This contradicts this mentality. Also, if it were truly their goal to make us more inefficient, they’d move stuff around more wouldn’t they? It reminds me of an old Steven Wright joke. He talks about walking into a store and there were no shelves. Everything was just piled on the floor. He said he guessed that’s what you’d call an “inconvenience store”.
I’ve suggested to the app developers and even had my FIL push it up the chain. “Mapping” your shopping looks like won’t happen.
So, is that from feedback you’ve actually heard from someone at Kroger? Would love to get some kind of official response on the suggestions.
I’ve often wondered the same things Jason. This is totally doable and is the difference between an app that is downloaded and used maybe once or twice, and an app considered to be chock full of YOUtility, as Jay Baer might say.