Can't be any worse than their delivery service in the Ralph's division from about five years ago.  Their competitor Albertson's dropped their delivery in favor of a pick up and go service.  Only Vons/Safeway stayed with delivery and now that they're Albertson's... who knows what'll happy.

Instacart one hour grocery delivery workers are all over Atlanta division stores.

It will fail. I guarantee it will.


In my district (and having talked to a hiring manager that hired me two years ago), Kroger is VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY shorthanded (emphasis on VERY). They're now struggling to find more warm bodies to stock shelves and work in the service departments. That's in addition to the higher-up's "vision" of not handing out much hours in the hopes that whoever is left will "pick up the slack".

I've seen more shelves have holes, and departments like dairy, deli, and bakery not having enough manpower that they end up missing their rounds to mark down any expiring items. Often times they won't be able to mark milk down until the day before (if not the day of) the best buy date. The bakery has it worse, so I was told.



What does that have to do with the concept outlined in the OP? Well, if they struggle to have employees keep shelves stocked and product maintained, do you think they'll have anyone on hand to pick groceries out for a suburban mom with four kids in tow? Even if they hire extra staff to implement it, will they hand out hours that will make sure that it works? Knowing Kroger, they'll cut the hours by half the following week and send half of the newly-hired staff to fill in for CC's that's suddenly disappeared.

www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Walmart-Rolls-Out-Curbside-Grocery-Service-in-North-Texas-332985711.html

Walmart is implementing this too, with no extra charge for the service. Walmart is like Kroger though... staff only what is absolutely necessary to keep things running (not running smoothly, just plain running... complete with all the trips and bumps and whatnot along the way), so I honestly don't see sufficient manpower being put in place to make this a success. You basically need to create a new sub department within the store... people that receive the orders and pass them off to people that do the shopping and then you've got to either have the same people that are shopping or other people all together load the groceries into the customers' vehicles. Could it work? Yeah, it could, but only with the right number of people and right number of hours allotted to do the job right, and that doesn't fall in line with the way retail does things, in general. Then too, will there be "designated pick up zones" or are customers going to have to just park in the parking lot? The article does say, "pick them up curbside" and considering the traffic Walmart draws, this could cause nightmarish congestion between people picking up groceries and cars navigating the parking lot.

I personally think this is something that won't really take off, for Walmart or Kroger. It's still not as convenient as ordering off of, say, Amazon, where you can get a lot of the same stuff a Walmart or Kroger sells, with free shipping in a lot of cases, and at comparable (or better, but not always) prices. I believe that's where the future of shopping is... with online ordering and direct delivery. Obviously, that won't completely wipe out grocery stores, but there is a reason Walmart is losing ground to Amazon, and Kroger too needs to be concerned with Amazon and online ordering, as well as be concerned with the rise of "value first" competition like Aldi and WinCo, which attract customers that more concerned with savings than a full service grocery store. Kroger needs to watch what is worrying Walmart, because the same things Walmart is concerned about is what Kroger should be concerned about and looking to combat now.

And no, saying "hello!!!" ten million times is not how you combat the changing landscape in the grocery business, and neither is wearing silly aprons and hats for a couple of weeks.

And, no, saying, "Hello, hello, hello!!!" ten million times is not how you combat the changing landscape in the grocery business, and neither is wearing silly aprons and hats for a couple of weeks.

We need more apron.

And cowbell.