Two years ago, five national consumer advocacy organizations, including Consumer World and Consumer Reports, called on a dozen supermarket CEOs to stop digital discrimination and make digital coupons more accessible to less tech-savvy shoppers. There are significant numbers of seniors and lower income folks who do not use the internet or have smartphones and thus they they have been shut out of advertised digital-only offers.
Digital coupons like the one above are advertised in a chain’s weekly sale circular. Generally stores have required shoppers to go to the coupon section of the store’s website or app, and then find and e-clip each particular coupon individually that they want.
Now, one supermarket chain finally heard our call and took decisive action to fix this. Last week, Stop & Shop, the largest supermarket chain in the Northeast, announced it was rolling out “Savings Station” kiosks to the entire chain after successfully completing a one-year test of them in a handful of stores. Installation will be complete by the end of January.
The kiosk is essentially a freestanding screen and barcode reader located at the front of the store. All a customer has to do is scan their loyalty card or enter their phone number on the device, and then all that week’s advertised digital coupons are automatically loaded onto their card or account. It takes as little as five seconds! No more futsing with apps or the coupon section of the store’s website (except for manufacturers coupons). This is NOT a computer in the store where you have to go through all the steps of loading coupons as you would at home. [See earlier video demo.]
This should come as welcome news to the 70-percent of Consumer World readers who told us in a 2022 survey that they would prefer an easy offline in-store method to activate digital coupon savings. Frankly, even for those of us for whom doing stuff online comes more easily, this is a huge time saver.
Hat tip to EntryPoint, the company that developed these kiosks and has launched them in other chains like Food Lion and Winn Dixie also.
We applaud Stop & Shop for taking this innovative step to help digitally-disconnected shoppers finally be able to access digital discounts and to cut their ever-climbing grocery bill.
Now it’s time for other supermarket chains to follow Stop & Shop’s lead and help all their customers get easier access to digital discounts. Albertsons… hello? Kroger… hello?
So now the digitals are loaded to my card. How do I know what they are?
knowing such might entice me to purchase said items, otherwise I might pass on them! Maybe the shelves should indicate the item was a digital coupon?
Frank… you opt for a printout, if you like, which will show you all the loaded digital coupons. Alternatively, you can see in the picture that the store circular is right there… and all the items flagged as digital coupons will be the ones added to your card/account.
NY regional chain Price Chopper is also advertising their kiosks that will load ecoupons onto loyalty cards.
Great idea!
Still, these kiosks seem to be an expensive and unnecessary inconvenience. Why not just load the coupons onto everyone’s cards and be done with it? At my local chain, Tops Markets in western New York, this is effectively what happens. You simply have the cashier scan your loyalty card and all the advertised savings are automatically applied. Even if you don’t have your card with you, the cashier will often scan the coupon from the paper flyer.
David… most of the digital coupons as stated in the weekly circular are backed by manufacturers reimbursing the store for their use. Under general coupon redemption rules, the shopper must request the coupon. They cannot be automatically given to every customer (just the way rebates have to be requested and not given to all who buy the item). The action of using the kiosk to load those digital coupons in the ad qualifies as such an action/request. Please don’t confuse normal sale items with items advertised as only being available with a digital coupon. Looking at the current Tops ad from Buffalo, as an example, there are NO DIGITAL COUPONS advertised. They have physical coupons in this week’s ad which must be clipped and presented to get those savings. The other sale items are available to any shopper who scans they loyalty card as they check out.
The S&S. in danbury ct. has a terrible wifi signal, so most of the time you cant even scan your # and you wont get the points added to your account,
Same with entering your phone # and lately the S3. healthy savings card wont read either. $10 free fruit and veggies weekly.
this just continues the encroachment into our privacy, via corporate tracking and reselling of our data… risking more and more database breaches and our personal info is out there again. the only way to avoid this is to pay cash and miss out on any discounts. this doesn’t appear to be a very fair or secure solution…
I agree, Jay. That discount is the price for YOU, the “product” they will make extra money from.
Nothing’s perfect, but I am very pleased about this especially because it benefits those who are not digitally connected and without others to assist them.
Thank you for the effort to help seniors who don’t have a modern cell phone: My husband! He grocery shops & can’t use digital benefits.
My pleasure, Mary. More chains should follow Stop & Shop’s lead.
I’ve seen the kiosks and knew you’d be all over it, Edgar! I wish ShopRite would do this. They usually follow suit so maybe they will. I much prefer ShopRite in general to Stop & Shop. In my area it’s vastly superior in terms of selection and price.
Renee… my understanding is that ShopRite (or some of their locations) has a kiosk, but it is more like a desktop computer screen where you have to navigate their website/app as if you at home. It is not “flash and go” card type system.