When it comes to grocery shopping, Cincinnati's Kroger is not standing still.
It is rapidly turning its stores into grocery stores of the future, with new services like:
- ClickList for online ordering
- Scan, Bag, Go for quick in-store shopping
- Home delivery
9 On Your Side was the first media outlet to report on many of these services, as they rolled out over the past two years.
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Scan Bag Go
We caught up with Northern Kentucky shopper Jill Mason and her daughter who were using a device called "Scan-Bag-Go".
"I love it, it keeps a running total of everything you spend," Mason said.
"Scan-Bag-Go" is a handheld wand you wave at bar codes as you shop. It keeps a running tally of everything you purchase, so there's no surprise at checkout. Best of all, checkout takes just seconds.
"When you get done with your shopping experience, instead of taking the products out of your cart and having them scanned by a cashier, you've already done the scanning and the bagging," Kroger spokesman Keith Dailey said.
Click List
The Kroger Co. opened its 500th ClickList location in Delhi Township in the fall of 2016, bringing the number of Cincinnati-area locations where customers can buy online and pick up at the store to 25.
Behind the scenes, Kroger is refining its search engine to help ClickList shoppers get through the online-ordering process more quickly.
It’s improving the profitability of the new service by helping employees pick several orders at the same time.
At the store, Kroger has deployed nine different models to fit its ClickList pickup stations into parking lots, from the canopy-covered loading docks at its Oakley store to the re-striped parking spaces in White Oak.
Home Delivery
Kroger is testing home delivery.
That could be coming in the next year. For now, it's letting third-party companies like Grocery Runners, Dashing Delivery and Caring Hands handle door-to-door delivery in the Cincinnati area.
Customers like Trish Wise love it, saying, "It's great. It brings fresh groceries right to your door, for busy people or those who can't get out out to the store."
While only a small percentage of Tri Staters are opting for delivery, Kroger sees it as the future -- a high tech world where you click on some things you need, or swipe your phone, and it shows up two hours later.
That way, you don't waste your money.
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“Don't Waste Your Money” is a registered trademark of Scripps Media, Inc. (“Scripps”). The information included in this article was obtained independently by Scripps reporters. While purchases from links inserted in this article may result in a commission for Scripps, no Scripps reporter benefited from that commission.
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