former front end courtesy clerk here, I left a month ago because it wasn't like 2018 anymore when I got 30 hours plus each wee. Ever since January 2019 the entire front end has been scheduled under 20 hours. SO... I left that **** hole and now work full time elsewhere. I am just curious, do hours still suck now? I remember my boss said by Spring it'll go up in hours again. However...some of my old friends say they still are getting 12 hours a week and cheduled AGAINST availability. I guess leaving was a wise choice.
It really depends on the market a store is in, the metro demographic the store is in, the anual sales, etc. of that nature. But yeah, overall, retail is a fast dying employer to look at for strength and longevity. Which sucks considering Walmart, as an example, is the nation's biggest fu cking employer!
Amazon fresh is also a thing now , basically we are heading towards an eta where no one even goes to grocery stores anymore.
One of my coworkers told me about a site called Instacart today and how she works for them. It's basically like Grubhub or Postmates or Doordash, but you are the one delivering the groceries to the person who orders. Completely blew my mind when she told me this.
Not sure how this affects a grocery bagger losing their job. But this makes one less customer coming into your store to shop for stuff themselves. I need a car so I can make some of this Instacart side-cash.
InstaCart and other personal shopper services are growing in size. Quite a few of them come through the store I work at. Some of them are REALLY needy and pushy (because they HAVE to deliver the groceries within a certain window). Look, I don't mind helping the person find one or two items, but don't ask me to show you where 80% of the stuff is. YOU'RE shopping for the customer. I have other customers that are IN THE STORE that need help plus work of my own to do.
Kroger is continuing to push and expand its partnership with InstaCart, too. The more business Kroger can "shift" to InstaCart, the fewer hours Kroger has to budget for the departments, so fewer cashiers and baggers, for example. I suspect too Kroger would LOVE to move the majority of ClickList business over to InstaCart so Kroger can cut labor costs while still profiting from customers that use the InstaCart service.
The company doesn't make any more on an Instacart Order compared to a Pickup Order, the only cost savings is Pickup Associates wages. In reality, outsourcing services like this only causes a larger disconnect from the customer. Did the Instacart Shopper seem to care anything about the quality of the items selected or anything in general? In reality services like this are temporary, until a company comes up with a better solution, please google "Ocado"and see what will eventually be. Doing the selecting in-store is time consuming and causing issues with in-stock, if you can basically have a warehouse like this, ship to store or deliver to a residence for a $4-$6 bucks, most costs are saved. Hell, make each neighborhood have a "Delivery Day" like a "Amazon-Prime Day", one warehouse could cover a larger area if ordering 5-10 hours before delivery time.
Does this mean that the ClickList department will eventually be phased out? They tell us that Pickup is the future of Kroger, and the job of supervisor has a lot of pressure put on them, but what will their future be? Will they even work in the stores?
