I’ve been shopping at the Jewel, my neighborhood grocery store for 47 years. In the old days, there were printed coupons in the newspaper. There were even wallet organizers so you could place your coupons into appropriate categories, present them to the cashier and he or she could scan them to ensure you got your few cents off your customary items.
Now one must be a technical guru to figure out the deals available.
My neighbor texted me recently while she was shopping: ‘Why can’t Jewel just give me the sale price rather than my having to ‘clip’ every digital coupon?!?’
My daughter, age 39 has much the same reaction: ‘I just don’t get the digital coupon thing.’
On my fourth or fifth trip to the Jewel last week (seriously how many total trips have I taken grocery shopping?) I noticed a group of boomer-aged women clamoring around the yogurt cases in the back of the store. Most were bending down, attempting to take a photo of the scan code to ensure they got the yogurt for $1.00, admittedly a great price.
There were a few problems: each individual flavor required an individual code. Another problem was capturing the code on your phone. But before problem #2 could be solved, the customer had to find the Jewel app.
For those of us ‘golden girls’ this is no small feat. First, you must click on the Jewel app; that usually results in the whirligig whirling around. Then, you need to land the camera lens directly on the required code; and finally, you cannot forget to ‘clip’ the coupon once you succeed after all of the above stated obstacles.
Fortunately for all of us gathered around the yogurt case, there were two very nice gentle souls: the stock boys.
The young man asks permission to take my phone.
“First of all, you have to make sure you don’t have a lot of open apps.”
“Hmm. How do you do that?”
He shows me with quick flip of his finger and he makes all the open apps (all 37 of them!) close.
And now the app works without the whirligig. And I get my photo. And I remember to clip the deal.
Whew! Watching the screen at the checkout, I cheer: “Victory! Strawberry yogurt for $1.00.”
My humble thanks to the stock boys.
Laurie Whitman is going all in with connectivity at the grocery store
