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Kroger Makes Digital Coupons Easier to Use

For the past three years, consumer groups including Consumer World have called on big supermarket chains to make digital coupons easier to use for seniors, poor folks, and others who either don’t use the internet or smartphones or who are not particularly tech-savvy.

Normally, a shopper has to use the supermarket’s website or app to individually select and load each digital-only offer or coupon onto their store loyalty card account before they shop in order to get the advertised discount.

CherriesConsumer World photo illustration

Now Kroger and some of its various supermarket brands like King Soopers have come up with a simple and cheap solution. They are making available digital deal savings sheets — a “super coupon,” if you will — that is a two-sided piece of paper that you pick up as you enter the store or at the courtesy desk. All that week’s advertised digital deals from the store’s current circular are summarized there, and a small barcode is provided on the back. The shopper need only scan that barcode at the checkout, and then all that week’s advertised digital coupons will be loaded onto the customer’s account and the savings automatically deducted from their bill.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Kroger Digital Deals Sheet (small) Sample Kroger Digital “Super Coupon” (click to enlarge)

Consumer World asked the company for details about which of their chains have implemented these deal sheets, but they did not respond to multiple requests. Nonetheless, we salute Kroger for finally heeding the call to make digital coupons easier to use and available to digitally-disconnected shoppers.

We also asked The Consumerman, Herb Weisbaum, to check the stores in the Seattle area — QFC and Fred Meyer. He reports that both stores had displays of the “super coupons” near the store entrance.

QFC Deals Sheet

If you shop at a Kroger-owned store (Kroger, Baker’s, Dillons, Food4Less, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Harris Teeter, King Soopers, Mariano’s, Payless, Pick’n Save, QFC, Ralph’s, or Smith’s), please post a comment noting whether your store now has the “super coupon,” and if it was near the store entrance or if you had to request it. (Some locations reportedly are keeping them hidden behind the service desk, believe it or not.)

Kroger’s move follows an initiative by Stop & Shop at the beginning of 2025 to install “Savings Center” kiosks in the front of their 350+ stores where all a shopper need do is scan her loyalty card and then all that week’s advertised digital coupons are automated loaded onto her account.

Some of these efforts by supermarket chains to make digital coupons easier to use are the result of consumer complaints by customers, the advocates’ campaign to end digital discrimination, and legislative efforts requiring that non-digital alternatives be offered.

In regard to legal initiatives, San Diego’s new ordinance that requires supermarkets to make available printed versions of digital coupons in the store just hit a road block because retailers are opposed it. They lobbied for an amendment that would completely gut the new requirement. See Coupons in the News. It is scheduled for a new hearing this week. Stay tuned.

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UPDATE
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Without going into great detail here, MrConsumer wrote to the entire San Diego city council pointing out the issue with their proposed amendment. And they listened and voted approval of a revised amendment. Now stores need provide “an in-store alternative” for all publicly available digital-only deals and digital coupons (instead of the only option being printed versions of digital coupons). They dropped the explicit exclusion of digital offers in store loyalty programs that would have been fatal to the original amendment. The new ordinance gets a second reading soon, and goes into effect in October.

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San Diego Fights Back Against Digital Coupons

Vons Digital CouponLast week, the San Diego city council passed an ordinance to require stores that advertise digital-only deals to also provide paper versions of those coupons so anyone without digital access or know how can still benefit from the savings.

This is believed to be the first government action to fight digital discrimination in retailing and become law. As readers of Consumer World and Mouse Print* know, consumer advocates have been urging stores to offer easy, offline alternatives to digital coupons so that the many digitally-deprived seniors and lower income folks who have been shut out of these deals can have equal access. [See our series of stories.]

The bill, sponsored by city councilor Sean Elo-Rivera, is elegantly simple:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Any grocery store that offers digital discounts to consumers for the purchase of goods must make physical coupons for the digital price available to consumers upon request.

It also provides that stores post a sign alerting shoppers to this requirement.

Simplicity, sometimes, can have its own issues too. We pointed out to the city councilor that stores in San Diego like Vons and Albertsons offer 400 – 500 digital coupons each week via their apps and websites, and it would be cost prohibitive for stores to have to print a 40 or 50 page book each week with them. We suggested that the law only apply to those digital coupons and digital-only discounts that are advertised to shoppers in their weekly or periodic circulars. He agreed and said they would add clarifying language, but as the ordinance heads to the mayor for his signature, that has not been done yet.

Other states have been considering legislation that would require stores to offer shoppers other easy alternatives to digital coupons. New York and New Jersey in a particular have had bills in their legislature on the subject, but they have yet to pass. Additional states like Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Illinois also are considering similar proposed laws this year. (See update at Coupons in the News.)

And at the beginning of 2025, Stop & Shop, with over 350 supermarkets in the Northeast, rolled out digital coupon kiosks in all their stores so shoppers merely have to scan their loyalty card or enter their phone number and then all that week’s advertised digital coupons are automatically loaded on their account. [See our story.]

Kudos to San Diego for passing their ordinance which goes into effect this summer, and to the other states and stores working to make digital-only deals accessible to everyone.

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Stop & Shop Educates Shoppers About Making Digital Coupons Easy to Use

SS digital coupon itemsIn December. we told you that the largest supermarket chain in the Northeast, Stop & Shop, was rolling out Savings Center kiosks to all its stores to make using digital coupons easy for everyone including shoppers who are not particularly tech savvy.

All you have to do now to load all that week’s advertised digital coupons onto your account is to scan your loyalty card or enter your phone number at the kiosk as you enter the store. No more futzing with the store’s website or app to locate and load each coupon individually.

This move by Stop & Shop came after a two-year effort by MrConsumer and four other national consumer organizations to sensitize supermarket CEOs about the discriminatory effect that digital coupons had on vulnerable people many of whom were not able to use them to lower their grocery bill.

Now that the kiosks have been installed in all their 350+ stores, Stop & Shop is going one step further and has started airing a 15-second TV commercial to educate shoppers on how easy it is now to use digital coupons.

When Stop & Shop first told me a few months ago that they were going to air a commercial about the kiosks, I was thrilled because you can’t just install new technology in a store and hope people will find and use it. They also said they had a surprise in store for me. When I watched the ad for the first time recently, it wasn’t obvious to me what the surprise was. Then it hit me.
MrConsumer's caricature

The company said that creating a caricature of me was their way to give a subtle nod to my advocacy around this issue.

I am humbled.