Plans for today (2019-2022)

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My main plan today is to go to a Kroger about…30 minutes away, one I rarely go to, and that’s because it’s been dubbed “the Kroger of the Future,” as they’ve fitted it with all their latest techie automated stuff, including KroGo SmartCarts.

The carts have a little onboard computer, and you sign in with your loyalty card, and pop your bags in it, and from there, shop as normal, and the cart automatically scans anything that’s put in it (and “unscans” it if you change your mind), weighs produce automatically, and you pay right on the cart, and that’s that.

As a huge (and apparently only) devotee to their short-lived Scan-Bag-Go program, I’m rather excited.
 
TastyReuben said:
My main plan today is to go to a Kroger about…30 minutes away, one I rarely go to, and that’s because it’s been dubbed “the Kroger of the Future,” as they’ve fitted it with all their latest techie automated stuff, including KroGo SmartCarts.
Click to expand...
Here’s my cart, ready to go:

92182


And here it is mid-shop:
92181


This is what they’ve replaced their previous high-tech option (Scan-Bag-Go) with. The idea is that you sign in on the mounted terminal, place your (or their) bags in the cart, and start shopping.

The cart has four cameras, one at each corner (as well as a small one in the front mini basket) and that’s what’s supposed to scan your items as you put them in.

Produce, you use the terminal to look it up (if it has no barcode), then put it in the cart, and the cart weighs it and shows you the price. Barcodes produce works like any other barcoded item.

At the end, you just follow the checkout prompts on the terminal to pay.

The pros: you get to skip both self-checkout and cashier checkout lanes. That’s about it.

The cons: the cart is small and heavy, hard to maneuver. It’s actually closer to the size of a mini cart than a full-sized cart. I ended up not getting everything I wanted because it wouldn’t have fit.

The scanning function is touchy. It sometimes took several passes to get an item to scan, and a couple of times, I just used the little scanner up in the mini basket.

The onboard computer is not as tied to my loyalty card as I’d like. Forgot having it actually pull my list when I log in (seems simple enough), but it doesn’t work with ApplePay, whatever the Google version is called, or even with their native KrogerPay. You have to have a physical credit card on you to pay.

Hopefully, they get that fixed in time. Even with self-checkout, I can use KrogerPay and have it automatically charge my card on file.

Lastly, you can’t take the carts outside, so if you can’t carry what you bought, you have to offload to a traditional cart to transfer them to your car. That’s pretty stupid, frankly.

All in all, it’s early days, and I’m hopeful it gets better. Scan-Bag-Go was a struggle at first, but I came to love that. This is nowhere near as convenient as that was.

One thing I will say - unlike Scan-Bag-Go, Kroger has trained a cadre of staff positioned throughout the store to help with these. I was approached several times to find out if I needed help. Scan-Bag-Go, they tossed that out with no worker training, and the shopper was left to figure it out on their own.

I’m not giving up on this yet, I’ll give it a few more tries, but not that thrilled with it yet, though I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to improve.
 
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TastyReuben said:
Here’s my cart, ready to go:

View attachment 92182

And here it is mid-shop:
View attachment 92181

This is what they’ve replaced their previous high-tech option (Scan-Bag-Go) with. The idea is that you sign in on the mounted terminal, place your (or their) bags in the cart, and start shopping.

The cart has four cameras, one at each corner (as well as a small one in the front mini basket) and that’s what’s supposed to scan your items as you put them in.

Produce, you use the terminal to look it up (if it has no barcode), then put it in the cart, and the cart weighs it and shows you the price. Barcodes produce works like any other barcoded item.

At the end, you just follow the checkout prompts on the terminal to pay.

The pros: you get to skip both self-checkout and cashier checkout lanes. That’s about it.

The cons: the cart is small and heavy, hard to maneuver. It’s actually closer to the size of a mini cart than a full-sized cart. I ended up not getting everything I wanted because it wouldn’t have fit.

The scanning function is touchy. It sometimes took several passes to get an item to scan, and a couple of times, I just used the little scanner up in the mini basket.

The onboard computer is not as tied to my loyalty card as I’d like. Forgot having it actually pull my list when I log in (seems simple enough), but it doesn’t work with ApplePay, whatever the Google version is called, or even with their native KrogerPay. You have to have a physical credit card on you to pay.

Hopefully, they get that fixed in time. Even with self-checkout, I can use KrogerPay and have it automatically charge my card on file.

Lastly, you can’t take the carts outside, so if you can’t carry what you bought, you have to offload to a traditional cart to transfer them to your car. That’s pretty stupid, frankly.

All in all, it’s early days, and I’m hopeful it gets better. Scan-Bag-Go was a struggle at first, but I came to love that. This is nowhere near as convenient as that was.

One thing I will say - unlike Scan-Bag-Go, Kroger has trained a cadre of staff positioned throughout the store to help with these. I was approached several times to find out if I needed help. Scan-Bag-Go, they tossed that out with no worker training, and the shopper was left to figure it out on their own.

I’m not giving up on this yet, I’ll give it a few more tries, but not that thrilled with it yet, though I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to improve.
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I wonder what a small child costs? :scratchhead:

My best guess from the can't take it out of the store is that they are aiming it the single bag or lunch foods shopper, not someone doing the weekly, fortnightly or monthly shop.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
My best guess from the can't take it out of the store is that they are aiming it the single bag or lunch foods shopper, not someone doing the weekly, fortnightly or monthly shop.
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Yeah, it’s made for a small shopping trip. That cart is deceptively small.

In the top shot, it has three opened-but-empty old-style brown paper sacks in there. What you can’t see is that the way the cart sides angle in, the bottom of that cart is completely covered. I needed to buy a 24-pack of bottled water, and I had to stack one of those bags on top of the others to make room.

And correct, they can’t be taken outside, so if you can’t carry your purchases yourself, you have to move them to a…dumb cart?…and roll them out that way.

As you can tell in my purchases post, I didn’t have a very large amount of purchases, but that cart was full. Next time, I’ll take my own bags, which are purpose-fitted to a cart, and I’ll see how it goes.

Honestly, though, until these come to my local Kroger, I won’t have much call to use them. I’ll drive 30 minutes each way for a bigger shopping trip, but I can’t do that for a middle-of-the-week pop-in just to grab some bread, milk, and fresh veg.
 
TastyReuben said:
My main plan today is to go to a Kroger about…30 minutes away, one I rarely go to, and that’s because it’s been dubbed “the Kroger of the Future,” as they’ve fitted it with all their latest techie automated stuff, including KroGo SmartCarts.

The carts have a little onboard computer, and you sign in with your loyalty card, and pop your bags in it, and from there, shop as normal, and the cart automatically scans anything that’s put in it (and “unscans” it if you change your mind), weighs produce automatically, and you pay right on the cart, and that’s that.

As a huge (and apparently only) devotee to their short-lived Scan-Bag-Go program, I’m rather excited.
Click to expand...

I have a Kroger Marketplace (Kroger's 'flagship' stores) near me. It doesn't have the magic carts, unless they have recently added them. I would be happy if they could manage to keep the store clean. The last time I went there, I finally told an employee that "This place is filthy." He was embarrassed but I doubt anything has changed.

However, an new HEB store is being built directly across the street. Maybe an empty store will get their attention.

CD
 
TastyReuben said:
Honestly, though, until these come to my local Kroger, I won’t have much call to use them. I’ll drive 30 minutes each way for a bigger shopping trip, but I can’t do that for a middle-of-the-week pop-in just to grab some bread, milk, and fresh veg.
Click to expand...

The only way I will drive 30 minutes out of my way for a grocery store is if that store is the only place I can get something that I really need.

Does it take you more than 30 minutes to self-check-out at your local Kroger?

CD
 
caseydog said:
Does it take you more than 30 minutes to self-check-out at your local Kroger?
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No, but I see grocery shopping as one of the most enjoyable experiences ever, honestly. I know, weird…

I’ve been in just about every grocery store in a 40-mile radius of my house, from the big names to the mom-and-pop shops, and if I’m driving through an area and see one I’ve not been in before, if I have time, I’ll pull over and duck inside.

I actually had a funny thing happen a couple of weeks ago - I was out driving around and saw the sign for a new location of a little village market (Dot’s, just their second location), so I did a quick u-turn, parked the car, trotted up…and it was just construction workers inside, working on the store. I was about a month early!

So, yeah, on Saturdays, when I leave MrsT to her marathon best-friend phone call, I’ll randomly pick a location and say, “Hmmm…I haven’t been to Kettering/Springboro/Washington Court House/Hillsboro in a while…I think I’ll head over there today.”

I’ll likely go back over in a month or so and try it again. When Scan-Bag-Go first started, my main complaint (besides some buggy scanning behavior) was that you had to still go to a kiosk and pay there, with a physical card. They got that sorted just a few months after rolling it out, so I’m hoping to see some changes with these carts in the upcoming months.

Now if they’d only get the drone deliveries to my house. I’d like to try that at least once!
 
The only plan for today was to go to a Wandsworth pub, right next to the station, called "The Alma" . Curious - that means " The Soul" in Spanish. Anyway, toddled off to the station (2 minutes away) at 11.35. Trains delayed.
FINALLY got to the pub at 12.15. Could have walked there and back in that time, but since I was with my disabled son, what the heck.
Watched the game. Chelsea lost ( I don´t care, I don´t support them) and then we got a bit of the England v Argentina rugby game.
My new plan is to see how many plans my wife has got, so I can come up with some other plans. :hyper: :hyper: :D:D:D:D
 
My plan was to go back to bed and catch up on missed sleep this morning, but I have remembered I'm at the doctors on Thursday so I need to get my blood tests done today. So this morning I'm going to have to drive 50 minutes away, for a 5 minute wait, get the blood done and drive back again.
I'll call in at the rural supplies store to get some chook food before the next set of rain arrives... It's due to be heavy which basically means if we get hit, we'll get cut off again....
 
I got haircut today, and finally found a barber who listens. Then home to work on my car. I have now buffed out all of the scuffs and scratches my dad put in the Audi, except on the back bumper. That will need to be repainted. He tore up the paint getting my mom's wheeled walker in and out of the car. The damage is too deep to buff out.

Then, got the chain saw out and cut up the dead pyracanthas tree for the city to pick up on Tuesday.

CD
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
My plan was to go back to bed and catch up on missed sleep this morning, but I have remembered I'm at the doctors on Thursday so I need to get my blood tests done today. So this morning I'm going to have to drive 50 minutes away, for a 5 minute wait, get the blood done and drive back again.
I'll call in at the rural supplies store to get some chook food before the next set of rain arrives... It's due to be heavy which basically means if we get hit, we'll get cut off again....
Click to expand...
That's awful, sorry you have to deal with all this :hug:
 
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