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Are Online Pickers Ruining the In-Store Grocery Experience?
Online pickers are being called out for hogging parking spots outside stores and clogging aisles inside.
Outside, Costco has reportedly started banning Instacart contractors, or “shoppers” in Instacart’s terms, from waiting in parking lots for orders at some stores. A screenshot on a recent Reddit post by a contractor in the Los Angeles area shows a message next to a Costco listing, “Store policy requires waiting at offsite parking.”
Instacart contractors picking up an order can use the Costco parking lot. However, a Business Insider article notes that many Instacart contractors camp out at busy stores even without an order because “heat maps” on the Instacart app reveal which stores are busy, and a driver’s proximity to a store determines which orders or batches of orders they see.
“I’m sure there are some people who are doing dumb stuff in parking lots,” one commenter on the Reddit post wrote. “But for the vast majority of us, we’re just waiting in our cars, minding our business. Possibly with the engines running if necessary. So the stores probably want their lots available for customers instead.”
Inside Walmart, a recent TikTok video with 692,000 views shows three carts full of to-go orders jamming an aisle, with in-store pickers hovering nearby. The video’s caption read, “Can we get more Walmart online shoppers in the aisle?”
One commenter who responded to the video stated, “I understand they are trying to do their job, but customers can’t get around shopping.”
Still, a large number of responders didn’t have a problem with the carts, with most being fans of curbside pickup or online delivery.
It’s not the first time in-store pickers have been called out as a nuisance. A Wall Street Journal article from 2019 noted that in-store pickers were starting to draw complaints after many began showing up in Whole Foods’ aisles following its acquisition by Amazon. Pickers also became more common in other grocery stores due to the arrival of Instacart and other delivery services.
The WSJ said, “A legion of gig-economy shoppers has flooded U.S. supermarkets, scouring shelves for goods customers have ordered online. That is causing consternation in aisle three.”
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Are in-store pickers or gig delivery workers negatively impacting the grocery shopping experience, whether in store aisles or out in parking lots? Do you see the need for more restrictions on how workers supporting online delivery operate at the store level?
Poll
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In general, yes. Most supermarkets are not designed for picking and packing on the shop floor and struggle to cope with the volume and process. Whole Foods is a prime example – aisles are crowded, counters are clogged with pickers placing orders, and public areas of the store like lobbies have been turned into packaging areas. It’s not a good look or feel.
The in-store pickers or gig delivery workers work for shoppers who are happy with the service because they don’t want to be in the store. But if these workers are disruptive, that obviously upsets regular in-store shoppers, which make up the bulk of business. The store needs to institute guidelines for these workers. What’s more, these guidelines need to be strictly enforced.
Good points John! Grocers need to find ways to manage the growth of in-store online order pickers to make shopping more enjoyable for their loyal customers. Some grocers I recently chatted with at the Grocery Tech event offered some suggestions that can help alleviate the shopping congestion in aisles, including providing online customers incentives to schedule pick-up or delivery during non-peak hours (morning or evening) or separate checkout areas for online order pickers. Ideally, larger chains could have micro fulfillment centers for fulfilling online orders.
Personally, I find the hogging the checkout part of online delivery shoppers to be the most annoying thing – and from the looks on cashiers’ faces, they do too. The three carts / 7 separate transactions thing – no thank you!
In a word, yes. Shopping at Whole Foods in Columbus Circle in Manhattan is not a good experience. It is always crowded and with pickers clogging up the aisles, it makes the shopping experience nothing but stressful. They are everywhere in the store and you cannot turn around without a picker blocking your path. Oh, and by the way, they are very aggressive. Perhaps there ought to be specific hours, where the pickers do their picking before the store opens?
For those of us that thought online ordering would be disruptive to retail grocery (and retail in general), we never imagined the disruption in the aisles and the discontent among in-store shoppers. What is occurring is absolutely unsustainable. Simply put, you cannot take a new delivery model (square peg) and force it into a legacy operation (round hole)! It’s time to rethink how fulfillment is achieved without causing traditional in-store shoppers to navigate a maze or obstacle course … or park further from the door to accommodate gig workers in waiting.
Today’s grocery stores were designed for yesterday’s shopping. To maximize customer experience, BOPIS, delivery, and curbside ordering, grocery management needs to rethink just about everything. The elements, which will probably involve drones sooner than later, will need to include micro-fulfillment centers (MFCs) and dark stores.
But that’s not all. Grocers need to look at their store footprint and parking lots and map out a new flow that supports today’s complex mix of shopping options. Automating the back-of-house operations will help, too. Long story short, prepare to invest in revamping operations at the store level in order to keep customers happy. As a grocery customer, I find it hard to even get at product with the proliferation of these gig workers. I understand the service they provide me when I use them, but don’t like the in-store experience they create. Grocers need to figure out a way to minimize pickers’ presence in the aisles while still letting them do their jobs.
Navigating the grocery aisles of most major chains has become a challenge and in-store traffic from online pickers has become a major source of angst for shoppers and retailers. As in-store shopping still accounts for 75%+ of sales, retailers must put plans and guidelines in place to preserve the shopping experience.
A big problem in our Kroger store – not so much in Publix. Maybe it’s store dependent? Whichever, the store manager needs to manage it.
This is another signal that the retail industry is in dire need of a complete rethink of store layouts and functional design. Most store designs are still based on a century old model. Reconfiguring stores to better serve staff pickers, self checkout queues, digital signage, partner ecosystems and more will pay for itself many times over in both revenue and profits.
Target seems to be getting a better handle on this – their most recent work at my local store (T-One) has added re-pack counters outside the main traffic flow so that pickers can bypass the checkout lanes, and aisle spacing in key areas like frozen and fresh were subtly tweaked to allow regular shoppers and pickers to pass by each other. There are still times of day/week where it’s a bit frustrating to navigate, but definitely improved from this time last year.
Stores are for shopping, fulfillment centers are for picking products. Using them alternatively creates a poor shopping experience, and inefficient order fulfillment from expensive real estate. Now imagine a proper geographically appropriate fulfillment center that could keep store shelves stocked up during the day with frequent deliveries while also bringing “pick up in store” orders to the location (or handing off to local delivery last mile capabilities). You could have smaller better stocked stores and a better experience all around.
Today’s topic survey shows 100% of fellow panelists feel in-store pickers are somewhat or majorly disruptive. I agree. When online order fulfillment diminishes the in-store experience, which it increasingly is, the time has come to give priority to customers on site and rethink how to ensure in-store customers have the best experience possible. Otherwise, grocers will begin losing those customers, who may very well choose to go elsewhere rather than shifting their buying to online ordering.
Are in-store pickers or gig delivery workers negatively impacting the grocery shopping experience? YES! YES! YES! This has been my complaint since the beginning of in-store picking.
Recently, I have observed that the pickers have disappeared in the local Whole Foods. Really, a surprise as Whole Foods was the biggest offender.
As a shopper, here is my restriction: NO PICKERS DURING STORE HOURS.
They are absolutely disruptive. This is especially true in older store formats that typically have narrower aisles. The challenge for pickers employed by the store, is that consumers want same day service and want to pickup on their schedule so that makes it hard to pick in off hours. For the Instacart and other non-retailer specific pickers retailers should consider incentivizing them to use some type of Mobile Check out to eliminate congestion at the front of the store. Also some signs in the parking lot prohibiting idling of engines for more than a few minutes might help if they are willing to try and enforce it.
This is the main reason that my local Amazon Fresh is unshoppable. If I can’t get to the food, how can I put it in my cart? Grocers might consider setting special hours for these kinds of orders.
I don’t think “restrictions” is the right word. One of the biggest operational challenges that emerged for grocers during the pandemic is how do they operate their stores more like a fulfillment center and still provide customers with a great shopping experience. This is still a work in progress for many retailers.
One of the issues I worried about early on was this: when a customer and a picker reach for the last item on the shelf, who wins? Extrapolate this: who wins between in-store customers and a gig-worker supply network that can potentially wipe out in-stocks, and how fast can the replenishment systems recognize and react when this happens?
Personally, I think the in-store guest always wins, and it appears that Costco shares my view on this. Retailers need to create policies and processes to manage all channels.
Online order pickers aren’t going anywhere, even after the pandemic when many customers (like me) returned to the store. And that’s a big part of the problem: There are just too many people crowded into narrow aisles that are also cluttered with POP displays. The pickers are trying to maneuver large carts with multiple bins while the rest of us are pushing grocery carts. (At least that’s my experience at my Kroger store, locally branded as Metro Market.) And let’s not forget store associates who are trying to restock the shelves. “Offpeak hours” really don’t exist any more, in terms of overcrowding.
Reengineering the traditional grocery store to address this problem isn’t going to happen overnight, but food retailers could make some tough (and fast) assortment decisions to help declutter the existing space, for the benefit of everyone.
It would seem that the commentators here have had these awful experiences. I haven’t. I was totally dependent on pickers during the height of the pandemic. And I was grateful, even when the order wasn’t completely correct. I’m in Northern Virginia. Do you think it’s related to geography?
Yes, I concur about the less than ideal conditions at Whole Foods. Even during slow hours, I feel like I have to yield to online pickers when navigating. My local store in Brooklyn has been this way since before the pandemic. They cordoned off an large area in the front of the store (between the checkouts and the front windows) exclusively for staging the deliveries, but after years of this, the area still looks unkempt and ad hoc. And why would you want to devote that valuable customer experience space to your online operation?
Surely, store designers can come up with a hybrid solution that doesn’t treat customers like unwanted guests.
Is there really anything other than anecdotes to support this claim ?? Intuitively I would think a professional shopping for – say – three of four people would be less disruptive than having those three or four people wandering around in the store; of course it’s likely more disruptive than having just one of those people shopping, but that’s the whole point: people are comparing apples to oranges (or really to a half-dozen oranges). I vote for “fake story”; but regardless, it’s entirely up to individual companies to decide what, if anything, to do with how they police their own stores.
Yes, they absolutely are hurting the customer experience of the in-store shopper but are also providing a great service for the ordering customer. Stores are not designed for this new reality and should be re-imagined to maintain the in-store experience while making it more efficient for the pickers.
Yes. Primarily in store aisles. Pickers are not merely “other customers” as, at least in Krogers, they use oversized carts which block access and clutter aisles.
It is worth wondering what level of revenue is needed for them to be worth the damage? Supposing 10% of revenue comes from pickers, why would stores allow that to hurt the experience of those delivering 90% of sales?
Interestingly, my youngest works at a Safeway micro-fulfillment center in our neighborhood. This seems a smart approach as deliveries happen but customers are not inconvenienced.