In the annals of global problems, a supermarket shopping app sounds like small potatoes. But like much in life, the seemingly trivial bespeaks of issues of weightier import. In this particular case, it involves whether anyone without a smartphone should be paying higher prices than one clutching one in their hands as they push their cart.
That’s how it goes with the Jewel-Osco shopping app that requires you to digitally “clip” coupons to get the store’s best deals on (as we write) such items as Chips Ahoy!, Samyang noodles, Garrett popcorn and Mary Kitchen corned beef hash.
Even Simply Orange juice. Not simply priced.
No phone, higher cost for you.
Jewel’s competitors do it differently: Whole Foods has Amazon Prime discounts, but all you have to do is enter your phone number at check out. Costco, Trader Joe’s and Aldi don’t traffic in clippery and give everyone the same price. At Jewel-Osco, you have to go item by item.
From Jewel’s point of view, this merely is a digital updating of the coupons people still can clip in this and other newspapers. They’re part of what economists call price discrimination. Jewel wants its rich, busy customers who can’t be bothered to “clip” things to pay more while also snagging those who are more price sensitive and willing to invest the time in getting a deal. These days, some form of variable pricing is everywhere, from airlines to online promo codes.
But legislators in Springfield have taken notice, and there’s a bill wending its way and gaining sponsors that would amend the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and force Jewel and others to make available in-store paper versions of whatever discounts they are offering in their app.
We’re not generally in favor of such governmental interferences in private business, especially low-margin operations like grocery stores; after all, people without phones who are irritated at Jewel are free to shop elsewhere. And this is hardly the only area of business where the best deals now are to be found only online; hotels do this all the time. This is something that the market should be able to police.
That said, we still think that Jewel has a lousy app.
It’s buggy: It froze on us when we reached the checkout the other day, causing us to be anxious we were overpaying, having not yet fully “clipped.” We find it unsupportive of couples’ shopping, since one spendthrift spouse/partner is likely to slip an unclipped item into the cart, causing the irritated bargain hunter then to go rushing around the store to see which stuff qualified (we know whereof we speak). Jewel has so many items on its shelves that the search function is one big pain.
And, yes, the store should offer an alternative for those who’d prefer not to be poking at their phone as they shop or who prefer not to carry one at all. Plus, unless you give up all kinds of data, your points expire, too.
So we’d humbly suggest that Jewel, which is owned by Albertsons Cos. Inc., rethink. Before the state makes them.
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