"As Seen On-line"
The majority of my grocery shopping takes place nearby at my local Shop-Rite. Shop-Rite [1] is a grocery store chain in the Northeast, and it uses the online service of MyWebGrocer [2] to post online their weekly circular and a few online features that are user-oriented and easy to use. In another post (coming soon!)(Hey, as a born & bred media & radio guy, I just can't keep from tossing in the occasional teaser/promo. Bear with me.) soon I will write about Social Media, Online Shopping and the Grocery Experience. This has been an interesting area of some focus of late, discussed at Jeff Pulver's Social Media Jungle [3] in November and may be on the agenda when Howard Greenstein and I speak [4] at the Consumer Electronics Show [4] next month in Las Vegas. Jeff Pulver is bringing the Social Media Jungle to CES, and it should be fun.
Recently the A&P group bought out [5] another local grocery chain, Pathmark [6]. A&P took Pathmark's mediocre online experience and dropped it down a notch or two by switching it to the standard chain-wide A&P online system.
As brick'n'mortar stores and institutions recognize and migrate toward the connected world, it is fascinating to gauge their expertise and understanding of the online experience. Some try to duplicate the store experience, some try to integrate elements of the store visit into a site. Others start anew and create sites with an online view to integrate into the extant store experience. Since grocery shopping is a tactile and perceptual task the integration of an online extension is a unique task. Again, more about that coming soon.
This morning I decided to take a look at ShopRite's weekly circular for the coming week. With the local Farmers Market on hiatus until June, I like to see what produce is on sale and check out the weekly specials. Imagine my surprise as I looked through it and saw that in the "Just for Baby" column the store was featuring 9-Lives Dry Cat Food. And Purina Dog Chow and Milkbone Dog Biscuits, too. See below, on the left.
WHAT to the baby?!">
We've all seen those "As Seen On TV" ads and flyers. This qualifies in the "As Seen On-Line" Category.
Let's hope none of those who use the online circular to make their grocery purchase decisions get confused and feed cat food to their babies! Or dog chow. Or dog biscuits.