Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

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Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by CalItalian »

Clicklist has been a failure from day one. Only a few Ralphs locations have ever had it and it's now down to just 10. Over the past couple of years, there have been plenty of $10 off $10, $10 off $25 paper coupons promoting the offering in store, first three to five orders with no fee and a number of digital coupons for free or discount products (Clicklist only coupons still exist on Ralphs.com which is now even more confusing). Now they are changing the name to Ralphs Grocery Pickup. But it is still nowhere to be seen in most areas. Ralphs, unlike Vons, doesn't seem to have any one effort moving forward for online grocery pickup or delivery available in all or even most stores (at the Manhattan Beach location, the Instacart order holding area at the front of the store seems to be used at best moderately). Their number one (by sales) and largest store, the store closest me, in Westwood Village across from UCLA doesn't offer any kind of delivery or pickup option (or their soon to be failure Scan, Bag, Go). Kroger, at least as far as Ralphs is concerned, doesn't seem to be moving ahead at all with online grocery sales (and reading the first few lines from their webpage about Clicklist changing its name appears to admit that).
https://www.ralphs.com/topic/clicklist
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by rwsandiego »

Not surprisingly, it is called "Fry's Grocery Pickup" here in Phoenix.

I can't say I have ever seen anyone use the service at my local Fry's, despite the elaborate lane markings, signage, and special parking spaces that messed up an already bad parking situation.

Maybe that's why no one used it.
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by babs »

They are in the process of changing the name chainwide. Change Ralphs in the URL to QFC, FredMeyer, Kroger, etc... it says the same thing.

I believe Clicklist or whatever you call it was only the first step to set up an infrastructure for grocery delivery. Clicklist was the first phase. I'm pretty sure at some point Instacart will be replaced by their own service or something they have more control over. Wall Street is demanding all grocers have a digital program to counter Amazon. We won't know for years as to what has legs and what doesn't.

While I rarely see anyone outside picking up groceries, I do see the blue Clicklist carts in the store regularly grabbing stuff off the shelves. My guess is the program isn't a failure but not a rousing success either.
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: September 6th, 2018, 9:11 pm They are in the process of changing the name chainwide. Change Ralphs in the URL to QFC, FredMeyer, Kroger, etc... it says the same thing.

I believe Clicklist or whatever you call it was only the first step to set up an infrastructure for grocery delivery. Clicklist was the first phase. I'm pretty sure at some point Instacart will be replaced by their own service or something they have more control over. Wall Street is demanding all grocers have a digital program to counter Amazon. We won't know for years as to what has legs and what doesn't.

While I rarely see anyone outside picking up groceries, I do see the blue Clicklist carts in the store regularly grabbing stuff off the shelves. My guess is the program isn't a failure but not a rousing success either.
There is one Smiths in this market that has Clicklist and when they installed it in late 2017, I never saw anyone using it. The employees assigned to the Clicklist function (it is a separate department at Kroger) were bored and helping out in other parts of the store. But, I have been pretty surprised after a few months of it being installed, that has changed, and the program seems to be somewhat successful. If you go to the store on a weekend in the afternoon or on a weeknight at 5 or 6 PM, you can usually observe a few pick ups if you wait for 20-30 minutes. There are regularly a couple of employees walking through the store picking orders during the late morning and early afternoon.

I think the Kroger CEO said on a recent conference call that their digital sales were up by some percentage. It seems like services like Clicklist are more of a response to Wall Street than something that is going to actually drum up business for the stores. Likely a distraction that little effort should be put into but some token efforts to get Wall Street off their backs about it. Kroger needs to focus more on operations, product quality, and overall execution because lately they are slipping in those areas.

Kroger has also had online ordering service in Colorado for the past 15 or so years, if not longer. They were (are?) using a low volume store as a fulfillment center and were (are?) doing home delivery there as well. This is not new to Kroger. Also there were those Fred Meyer Alaska Bush Orders that were being done online as well... again for many years.

Raleys also has a similar service in its stores called eCart which they have actually been offering for like the past 10 years in limited locations, but as of about a year ago, they offer it in all locations (except the former Scolaris that they are running like Cinderella stores for some reason that I do not quite understand). Up here in Nevada this service seems to be getting some use in their higher volume stores specifically Robb Drive in Reno and Wedge Parkway in Reno, but not a ton of use. But in their lower volume stores, there is little to no use. They use courtesy clerks to pick orders so if they get orders then they just flex the courtesy clerk off of bagging and onto order picking.
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by arizonaguy »

storewanderer wrote: September 6th, 2018, 9:31 pm
babs wrote: September 6th, 2018, 9:11 pm They are in the process of changing the name chainwide. Change Ralphs in the URL to QFC, FredMeyer, Kroger, etc... it says the same thing.

I believe Clicklist or whatever you call it was only the first step to set up an infrastructure for grocery delivery. Clicklist was the first phase. I'm pretty sure at some point Instacart will be replaced by their own service or something they have more control over. Wall Street is demanding all grocers have a digital program to counter Amazon. We won't know for years as to what has legs and what doesn't.

While I rarely see anyone outside picking up groceries, I do see the blue Clicklist carts in the store regularly grabbing stuff off the shelves. My guess is the program isn't a failure but not a rousing success either.
There is one Smiths in this market that has Clicklist and when they installed it in late 2017, I never saw anyone using it. The employees assigned to the Clicklist function (it is a separate department at Kroger) were bored and helping out in other parts of the store. But, I have been pretty surprised after a few months of it being installed, that has changed, and the program seems to be somewhat successful. If you go to the store on a weekend in the afternoon or on a weeknight at 5 or 6 PM, you can usually observe a few pick ups if you wait for 20-30 minutes. There are regularly a couple of employees walking through the store picking orders during the late morning and early afternoon.

I think the Kroger CEO said on a recent conference call that their digital sales were up by some percentage. It seems like services like Clicklist are more of a response to Wall Street than something that is going to actually drum up business for the stores. Likely a distraction that little effort should be put into but some token efforts to get Wall Street off their backs about it. Kroger needs to focus more on operations, product quality, and overall execution because lately they are slipping in those areas.

Kroger has also had online ordering service in Colorado for the past 15 or so years, if not longer. They were (are?) using a low volume store as a fulfillment center and were (are?) doing home delivery there as well. This is not new to Kroger. Also there were those Fred Meyer Alaska Bush Orders that were being done online as well... again for many years.

Raleys also has a similar service in its stores called eCart which they have actually been offering for like the past 10 years in limited locations, but as of about a year ago, they offer it in all locations (except the former Scolaris that they are running like Cinderella stores for some reason that I do not quite understand). Up here in Nevada this service seems to be getting some use in their higher volume stores specifically Robb Drive in Reno and Wedge Parkway in Reno, but not a ton of use. But in their lower volume stores, there is little to no use. They use courtesy clerks to pick orders so if they get orders then they just flex the courtesy clerk off of bagging and onto order picking.
The program seems to be fairly popular in areas where there are lots of younger families. Taking the kids out of the car and into the store is a pain in the butt. This program eliminates some of that hassle.
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by storewanderer »

arizonaguy wrote: September 6th, 2018, 10:30 pm
storewanderer wrote: September 6th, 2018, 9:31 pm
babs wrote: September 6th, 2018, 9:11 pm They are in the process of changing the name chainwide. Change Ralphs in the URL to QFC, FredMeyer, Kroger, etc... it says the same thing.

I believe Clicklist or whatever you call it was only the first step to set up an infrastructure for grocery delivery. Clicklist was the first phase. I'm pretty sure at some point Instacart will be replaced by their own service or something they have more control over. Wall Street is demanding all grocers have a digital program to counter Amazon. We won't know for years as to what has legs and what doesn't.

While I rarely see anyone outside picking up groceries, I do see the blue Clicklist carts in the store regularly grabbing stuff off the shelves. My guess is the program isn't a failure but not a rousing success either.
There is one Smiths in this market that has Clicklist and when they installed it in late 2017, I never saw anyone using it. The employees assigned to the Clicklist function (it is a separate department at Kroger) were bored and helping out in other parts of the store. But, I have been pretty surprised after a few months of it being installed, that has changed, and the program seems to be somewhat successful. If you go to the store on a weekend in the afternoon or on a weeknight at 5 or 6 PM, you can usually observe a few pick ups if you wait for 20-30 minutes. There are regularly a couple of employees walking through the store picking orders during the late morning and early afternoon.

I think the Kroger CEO said on a recent conference call that their digital sales were up by some percentage. It seems like services like Clicklist are more of a response to Wall Street than something that is going to actually drum up business for the stores. Likely a distraction that little effort should be put into but some token efforts to get Wall Street off their backs about it. Kroger needs to focus more on operations, product quality, and overall execution because lately they are slipping in those areas.

Kroger has also had online ordering service in Colorado for the past 15 or so years, if not longer. They were (are?) using a low volume store as a fulfillment center and were (are?) doing home delivery there as well. This is not new to Kroger. Also there were those Fred Meyer Alaska Bush Orders that were being done online as well... again for many years.

Raleys also has a similar service in its stores called eCart which they have actually been offering for like the past 10 years in limited locations, but as of about a year ago, they offer it in all locations (except the former Scolaris that they are running like Cinderella stores for some reason that I do not quite understand). Up here in Nevada this service seems to be getting some use in their higher volume stores specifically Robb Drive in Reno and Wedge Parkway in Reno, but not a ton of use. But in their lower volume stores, there is little to no use. They use courtesy clerks to pick orders so if they get orders then they just flex the courtesy clerk off of bagging and onto order picking.
The program seems to be fairly popular in areas where there are lots of younger families. Taking the kids out of the car and into the store is a pain in the butt. This program eliminates some of that hassle.
That would explain this. And the Kroger app is quite good if you want to order groceries through it. Between the scan item feature, add item feature, attach coupon feature, etc., the app is quite functional and I think you could do a shop pretty quickly if you keep buying the same items every week.

I've never actually used the Clicklist service though. This is just not an appealing program to me since I like to go look through stores.

I have watched people (granted they were at work so it wasn't their time) spend literally hours to navigate the Raleys website and do an eCart order of personal groceries to pick up on the way home from work.
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by CalItalian »

One of the 10 locations Ralphs has for pickup is the LAX Ralphs in Westchester on Sepulveda Blvd. which has a rather tight and odd parking lot that it shares with a CVS (former Longs). They have no dedicated parking area for pickup. I know a few cashiers in that store and they tell me that they do not get many orders to fulfill. Over the last couple of years, I've found lots of $10 off $10 and $10 off $25 Clicklist coupons throughout this store. I've never understood why they've used this location since it has a lot of travellers and airport workers that are just coming and going from LAX.

Fairly close by to the Westchester location, Ralphs also has another location for pickup in Ladera Heights. It's been a traditionally middle class mostly black neighborhood that has been gentrifying as of late. Huge, long store that at one time over 30 years ago took over a Sav-on and doubled in size (and was recently remodeled). They do have pickup parking spaces but I've never seen anyone have a pickup order.

Those are the only two stores that Ralphs has on the Westside or South Bay areas for pickup.

My biggest beef with Ralphs ordering online is the prices aren't the same as you will see on your receipt. You won't know until you pickup if the items in your cart qualify for a $5 off 5 promotion or buy one, get one free promo, for example. It just doesn't show those prices online but it will be reflected on your receipt when you pick up. They have made it easier to apply digital coupons as of late, though.
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by storewanderer »

CalItalian wrote: September 6th, 2018, 11:55 pm One of the 10 locations Ralphs has for pickup is the LAX Ralphs in Westchester on Sepulveda Blvd. which has a rather tight and odd parking lot that it shares with a CVS (former Longs). They have no dedicated parking area for pickup. I know a few cashiers in that store and they tell me that they do not get many orders to fulfill. Over the last couple of years, I've found lots of $10 off $10 and $10 off $25 Clicklist coupons throughout this store. I've never understood why they've used this location since it has a lot of travellers and airport workers that are just coming and going from LAX.

Fairly close by to the Westchester location, Ralphs also has another location for pickup in Ladera Heights. It's been a traditionally middle class mostly black neighborhood that has been gentrifying as of late. Huge, long store that at one time over 30 years ago took over a Sav-on and doubled in size (and was recently remodeled). They do have pickup parking spaces but I've never seen anyone have a pickup order.

Those are the only two stores that Ralphs has on the Westside or South Bay areas for pickup.

My biggest beef with Ralphs ordering online is the prices aren't the same as you will see on your receipt. You won't know until you pickup if the items in your cart qualify for a $5 off 5 promotion or buy one, get one free promo, for example. It just doesn't show those prices online but it will be reflected on your receipt when you pick up. They have made it easier to apply digital coupons as of late, though.
I understand the pricing cannot be quite exact as quoted on random weight items like produce. However, for single unit items, I believe they need to honor whatever prices they advertise when you place an order. It will be interesting to see how long they can get away with that in California.

If you order on a Tuesday night for a Wednesday pick-up and have ad items there with an expiration of that day, do you still not get those ad specials also?
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Re: Clicklist now called "Ralphs Grocery Pickup"

Post by CalItalian »

storewanderer wrote: September 7th, 2018, 8:52 am
CalItalian wrote: September 6th, 2018, 11:55 pm One of the 10 locations Ralphs has for pickup is the LAX Ralphs in Westchester on Sepulveda Blvd. which has a rather tight and odd parking lot that it shares with a CVS (former Longs). They have no dedicated parking area for pickup. I know a few cashiers in that store and they tell me that they do not get many orders to fulfill. Over the last couple of years, I've found lots of $10 off $10 and $10 off $25 Clicklist coupons throughout this store. I've never understood why they've used this location since it has a lot of travellers and airport workers that are just coming and going from LAX.

Fairly close by to the Westchester location, Ralphs also has another location for pickup in Ladera Heights. It's been a traditionally middle class mostly black neighborhood that has been gentrifying as of late. Huge, long store that at one time over 30 years ago took over a Sav-on and doubled in size (and was recently remodeled). They do have pickup parking spaces but I've never seen anyone have a pickup order.

Those are the only two stores that Ralphs has on the Westside or South Bay areas for pickup.

My biggest beef with Ralphs ordering online is the prices aren't the same as you will see on your receipt. You won't know until you pickup if the items in your cart qualify for a $5 off 5 promotion or buy one, get one free promo, for example. It just doesn't show those prices online but it will be reflected on your receipt when you pick up. They have made it easier to apply digital coupons as of late, though.
I understand the pricing cannot be quite exact as quoted on random weight items like produce. However, for single unit items, I believe they need to honor whatever prices they advertise when you place an order. It will be interesting to see how long they can get away with that in California.

If you order on a Tuesday night for a Wednesday pick-up and have ad items there with an expiration of that day, do you still not get those ad specials also?
No. You get whatever price is on Wednesday when they fulfill the order. That's one of my biggest beefs. That and not being able to calulate promos online such as their frequent $5 off 5 or $3 off 6 items promos.
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