I went to the grocery store with my mom today. It was more busy than usual — folk doing their pre-Christmas food shopping, I figure — but it was also even more of a hassle due to the Big New Trend at our grocery store: personal shopping.
King Soopers (Kroger), as well as their competitors, have seen the future, and it's people who don't want to go to the grocery store and shop for themselves, but are willing to pay to have the grocery store workers do it for them, and then they either drive to the store for pickup or have it delivered to the home.
Which is cool and awesome if you can afford the surcharge and don't mind if the personal shopper picks whichever limes come to hand rather than the ones you would have chosen yourself, etc. And, in theory, that should reduce the number of people at the store, right?
Except that it means the store is always (and I mean, pretty much every time I go there these days) crawling with "personal shoppers" (store staff), loading up oversized carts.
And the arts are oversized, significantly wider than a normal shopping card (as they contain crates being loaded for the customer). And the personal shoppers are less careful than either normal shoppers or even people restocking the shelves to make sure they aren't blocking the aisle. Like this lady, who had her cart at a rakish angle blocking the (extraordinarily wide) aisle she was in for enough time for me to go around her in another aisle and then snap the photo.
And, yes, this is all a #firstworldproblem , but this isn't the first time I've been tempted to post about it, and at least doing so has been cathartic. Until the next time.
Odd, have not really seen this at the grocery stores around my place. I had the impression they packed these things up in the back of the store, not cruisin' down the aisles.
Also, the stores are probably getting hammered this year because there is effectively four days of xmas with xmas day on a Tuesday you know most people will get or take Monday off and so poof four or five day weekend right there. Gotta stock up on food!
+Cindy Brown Oh, there were extra normal shoppers in the aisles and additional stock folk stocking. But I've run into the personal shoppers with their mega-carts before, and today their presence in multiple aisles I was trying to negotiate felt particularly irksome.
Around here they use regular carts, but the aisles are much narrower. And they do pull from the shelves.
Oh man. I'm apparently way more rude or impatient than you. I've run into that situation a couple times. They get a 5 second grace period to make sure they noticed me and then I move their cart for them while giving them a stink eye.
Only one of them has actually apologized as I did it.
Wow, must be a south side thing, I’ve never seen any at our King’s.
+Stan Pedzick Run into it both at Mom's KS and at the one by our house.
I’ve seen the big carts, but never had any trouble navigating around them. I used the service a few times when I was injured and could not walk around to do my own shopping. They had a promotion where you got a few orders without the surcharge, so I used that. It prevented me from having to impose on someone to help me with my shopping, which was great. But I haven’t used the service since I healed up enough to do my own shopping, and I don’t know if I will use it again or not.
+David Newman I don't actually object to the service itself — I'm sure there are people for whom it's a great convenience and others for whom the compromises and cost involved seem meaningless. I just don't want them getting in my way the way they do.
I use it here, occasionally. I mostly buy from a place that's solely based on delivery (no actual store). I usually do it if I need a lot of heavy or bulky items (flour, olive oil, canned tomatoes, paper goods, etc.) Since I have to physically carry everything, walk home from the store, and then up four flights, I figure the extra delivery fee is a lot cheaper than a torn or sprained muscle somewhere. Plus, it was really useful when I sprained my ankle a few years back and couldn't go out.
I am careful about which store I use though, some of them charge a fortune. In one case, the proposed fees were something like $20, for a small order! Nope. Nope. Nope.
I saw this for the first time a few days ago…it was exactly what you describe. Tall, wide, multi-sectioned cart with a person getting ALL the products from an area for several different customers. And yes, in the way, though the aisle was wide enough you could get around.
Hmmm. I don't think the grocery stores in my area can accommodate such described carts. Standard width of aisles is at just 2 normal carts wide, and often there's little display stands where you have to alternate passing because the display makes it too narrow. So while I bet there's "personal shoppers" there, they must be using the same carts as the rest of us. Or doing it in the back. Or when the store is closed, maybe.