I spend a lot of time and money at Kroger’s. I spend enough that I often get 50 cents off per gallon when I buy gas from them. But there are two things that really get my goat.
One, they use those huge shopping carts when they are assembling food for their pick-up customers. These things are so big you could put a couple refrigerators on them and still have room left over, and they take up most of the aisles. Some of their employees pushing the carts are not small people, if you get my drift. It makes shopping and navigating the aisles really difficult. While most of the cart pushers and mindful of regular customers and make room, others could care less. They make you wait while they block the lanes and finish picking their orders. Which pisses me off.
But what really takes the cake is their pricing policy in the soft drink section. They often advertise 3 for $10 for an eight-pack of drinks, but if you don’t buy 3, they charge you $5.49 for one, which is like 7-11 prices. And it’s not just one brand of drinks, like Pepsi or Seven-up, it’s all of them. Everything in the drink section is priced 3 or 4 for something or another. Food Lion doesn’t do that. If it’s 2 for $3, they only charge you $1.50 if you get one. And Wal-Mart doesn’t even bother with the two-fers. They give you the low price up front.
The Kroger policy is confusing and misleading. Almost every time I go, there is a price check in the self-service lines as a customer asks, “But I thought that…” and then they explain that, no by damned, you have to buy 3 eight packs, a whole case, if you want the savings. If I want cases of stuff, I go to Sam’s.
My way of retribution is that if I need soft drinks, I go to another store and buy my whole order there.
I doubt it affects Kroger’s bottom line, but it makes me feel a lot better.