Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the country.
(Devan Ridgway, WFIU/WTIU)
Digital coupons have changed the way we shop for the best deals. You need the internet or a smart phone in order to clip coupons and get the sale price. Grocery chains maintain this is giving customers more opportunities to save, but the best deals are now only available to those who are tech savvy.
Anne Robbins loves a good bargain. She would find deals in the paper ads and make her shopping list from that.
"So before digital coupons, I always read the ads. And I would take a crayon and circle all of the ads if it's way under, like it's the best price I've ever seen in my life."
But Robbins doesn’t get circulars in the mail anymore. She said it’s a lot more complicated to get those savings now.
“It's impossible if you don't have a phone. I don’t know how to use this phone as well as my other phone, and I’ve gone to the Geek Squad practically every day.”
Kroger is where she gets a lot of her essentials. On this day, a half gallon of chocolate milk is $2.69. But with a digital coupon, it’s $1.29 — less than half price.
The Kroger corporate headquarters declined an interview, but said in a statement that shoppers don’t need a smart phone to access the best deals, they just need to set up a Kroger account online and start clipping.
Kroger gave Robbins instructions designed to help people get started. The instructions have a QR code that takes shoppers to the Kroger site.
"Not everybody even knows that you take a photo of that," Robbins said, pointing to the QR code.
Jason Tomsci, regional director of AARP, said digital coupons could be a challenge for some seniors.
"It kind of just reiterates the importance of in this day and age of having that kind of access because with regards to high speed internet access, that just opens up a lot of doorways," he said.
Data from a 2020-21 Pew survey shows about 40 percent of people aged 65 and older don’t have a smart phone, and about a quarter don’t use the internet.
The same Pew data showed low-income shoppers are left out too. About a quarter of households that make less than $30,000 a year don’t have smartphones.
Anne Robbins tries to set up the digital coupons app from her phone. (Devan Ridgway, WFIU/WTIU)
How to make coupons more equitable
Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the country, and it also owns Dillons, Fred Meyer, Gerbes, King Soopers and Ralphs.
It announced what it considered a compromise this summer. Shoppers without a digital account can get the sale price — but they have to go to the customer service desk and ask for it.
Robbins has tried that and said it doesn’t always work.
"Sometimes they have people there who can't do that," she said. "Sometimes they'll just pull out their phone, and they'll purchase it and I give him the money and they put it in the till.”
State representative Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-N.J.) co-sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have made New Jersey the first state in the nation to require retailers to have printed copies of digital coupons in stores.
"You're taking advantage of seniors, you're taking advantage of low income people and people who aren't technically savvy, and I think we have to be able to come to some kind of compromise," she said.
The legislation got referred to a summer study committee and Reynolds-Jackson says she’ll bring it back up again next year.
“I’m coming from a tradition of the customer is always right," Jackson said. "If it’s supposed to be on sale, it’s on sale for everyone, not just selective people.”
Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld, and leaders of a half dozen other consumer groups recently wrote a letter to CEOs of the 12 largest grocery chains asking them to make digital offers available to unplugged shoppers.
"There are millions of them across the country that don’t have internet access. That don’t have smart phones and particularly in times of inflation can you make some accommodation. Can you come up with an offline alternative for these folks," Dworsky said. "Not everyone can go online and the prices they end up paying are sometimes two to three times what the digital customer pays."
Dworsky said none of the big chains have responded with a proposal. He expects more states to follow New Jersey’s lead and introduce legislation.
