UPDATE: On January 12, a New Jersey assemblyman filled the first bill in the country requiring retailers who offer “digital coupons” to also provide paper ones of equal value to those customers who do not have internet access.
The millions of seniors who don’t use the internet (25% according to Pew Research Center) or who don’t have a smartphone (39%) are being charged substantially higher grocery prices than their more tech-savvy counterparts because they cannot clip the e-coupons necessary to be charged the advertised sale prices in the store. Unplugged lower income shoppers face the same roadblock. (See our recent story.)
Look at just the front page of this ad from a Washington, DC Safeway store right before Christmas advertising in-store prices. Note how much more an unplugged (“non-digital” in red) shopper pays versus a digital shopper:
*MOUSE PRINT:
Just on those five items being purchased in-store, a non-digital shopper even if a member of the store’s loyalty program would have paid $67.03 compared to just $42.73 for a shopper who was able to clip the digital offers before going to the store. That is almost $25 more for the very same items.
Similarly, at this Star Market in Boston, an unplugged shopper would pay over $29 more for just these seven items.
*MOUSE PRINT:
In November, five national consumer organizations including Consumer World called on a dozen leaders of the supermarket industry to make an offline alternative available in their stores to disconnected shoppers so everyone could have an equal opportunity to pay the same discounted prices. The response has been silence from them or a bit of misleading PR-spin.
Now it is your turn to speak up and speak out telling supermarket executives how “digital-only” sale prices unfairly discriminate against the millions of shoppers without internet access or smartphones. Urge those companies to make a new year’s resolution to find a way to offer their unplugged customers the same lower sale prices that more digitally-capable shoppers pay.
So… please consider sending an email to the CEOs of Albertsons Companies (which owns Acme, Albertsons, Carrs, Jewel Osco, Randalls, Safeway, Shaw’s, Star Market, Tom Thumb, and Vons), The Kroger Company (which owns Baker’s, City Market, Dillons, Foods Co., Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less, Frys, Gerbes, King Soopers, Kroger, Marianos, Metro Market, Payless, Pick ‘n Save, QFC, Ralphs, and Smiths), and Stop & Shop.
The Albertsons Companies: Vivek.Sankaran@Albertsons.com
The Kroger Co.: Rodney.McMullen@kroger.com
Stop & Shop: Gordon.Reid@stopandshop.com
Perhaps together we can help convince stores to treat all their shoppers equally and fight inflation a little more easily.