Dive Brief:
- Kroger has started offering online deals to in-store shoppers via in-lane printers, according to a press release on Thursday.
- The new solution is a partnership between shopper intelligence firm Catalina and Kroger’s 84.51° data-analytics unit.
- The print-out option is a bid to make digital offers more accessible to in-store shoppers who don’t engage with Kroger’s online deals.
Dive Insight:
Called Catalina Reach Extender, the printer solution aims to bridge the divide between online and in-store shopping, the press release notes.
The announcement said 84.51° will select a base of “loyal, exclusively in-store Kroger shoppers” to give the online deals to, which they can then print out at each store.
Wesley Bean, U.S. Chief Retail Officer for Catalina, said in the announcement that the solution aims to boost satisfaction, trip frequency and basket size among loyal in-store shoppers.
"With inflation continuing to concern shoppers across the country, offering shoppers greater value on their favorite brands and products in a relevant way is not only appreciated, but also it engenders even greater loyalty,” Bean said.
The move not only impacts customers but also Kroger’s brand partners.
“This expansion will enable CPG brands to engage even more shoppers with inspiring products for their homes and families,” Cara Pratt, senior vice president of Kroger Precision Marketing at 84.51°, said in the announcement.
Prior to the in-lane printers, 84.51° offered personalized promotional offers to Kroger's online shoppers via its website, mobile app and Loyal Customer Mailer.
The move comes just a few months after Kroger along with 15 other grocers received a letter from a coalition of consumer rights and public interest groups calling on them to rethink digital-only deals to make them more inclusive of digitally-disconnected shoppers.
The letter, signed by Edgar Dworsky, founder and editor of Consumer World, claimed that non-digital customers who can’t easily preload digital offers onto their loyalty cards can overpay a “staggering” amount — only further exacerbated by ongoing high inflation.
Coupons and savings programs have taken on even greater significance as retailers leverage them to win customer loyalty amid months-long high inflation, which has just recently started to decelerate.
“We’ve been trending the same question of, ‘How concerned are you with inflation?’ for over a year, and it’s still sitting at two thirds of shoppers that are highly concerned,” Barbara Connors, vice president of commercial insights at 84.51°, recently told PYMNTS.
Connors told the publication that “the mindset around having a constrained budget and needing to make choices about what you put in a basket is one that is going to be sustained throughout this year.”
During Kroger’s most recent earnings call in December, Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said that Kroger’s customers have become “much more aggressive” in claiming personalized digital coupons, with downloads up 32% year over year.
