DISCUSSION
Kroger goes to school on grocery pickup at the University of Kentucky
Written by Tom Ryan
Kroger has opened a grocery pickup location for students at the University of Kentucky.
“Everyone is busy juggling work and home responsibilities, grocery shopping being one of those chores. Now, University of Kentucky employees and students can check this shopping job off their list before heading home,” according to a press release.
Users create an account at Kroger.com, make their purchases, choose the Kroger Field parking lot as their preferred pickup location and select one of the pickup windows available on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. (In 2017, Kroger secured the naming rights to the Kentucky Wildcats football stadium.)
The initiative melds retail’s experiments with grocery pickup points and serving colleges, both of which have faced challenges.
Grocers have largely assigned their pickup points to inside or outside their stores.
Beginning in the middle of the 2010s, pilots of standalone grocery pickup locations came from Walmart, Carrefour and Ahold Delhaize’s Peapod received media coverage but most were soon quietly abandoned. Peapod’s experiment in 2016 tested drop-off points at three Washington, D.C. Metro stations.
Walmart continues to test one grocery pickup point in Chicago’s Lincolnwood suburb.
In recent years, Target has opened several smaller stores near college campuses in line with its expansion into urban markets.
In 2017, Amazon opened five “Instant Pickup” stores measuring around 3,000 square feet in college communities that offered college students essentials such as snacks, drinks and phone chargers for pickup within two minutes, as well as the option to order and pick up any Amazon item at the store under the typical delivery time frame. The pilot ended in 2018.
Walmart had operated a number of Walmart on Campus locations under 3,000 square feet on college campuses but now only operates one at the University of Arizona that includes pickup of online Walmart orders.
- Kroger to offer online grocery pick-up service in stadium Orange Lot – University Of Kentucky
- Kroger Makes Long-Game Gen-Z Play with University Partnership – Pymnts
- Carrefour opens first Belgian stand-alone pick-up point – Carrefour
- Walmart to Open Its Largest Stand-Alone Grocery Pickup/Delivery Center – Progressive Grocer
- Amazon adds 'Instant Pickup' in U.S. brick-and-mortar push – Reuters
- Peapod and Giant launch grocery pick-up at metro stations in Washington D.C. – Ahold Delhaize
- Amazon quietly ends vending-machine style service tested in Atlanta, 4 other cities – Atlanta Business Chronicle
- Target readies more college campus stores – Supermarket News
- Walmart On Campus Fayetteville – Walmart
- Walmart on Campus Reopens With New Features for Students – University of Arkansas
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