Time is money but today online grocery services can claim to deliver some additional savings to consumers that go beyond avoiding a trip to the store.
According to a piece on the website of The Boston Globe, the amount of money consumers save by not making impulse purchases goes beyond the $6.95 to $9.95 fee charged by services such as Peapod to pick and deliver grocery orders.
Stacey Walsh, a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, is one of those consumers who has found that shopping for her groceries online has meant real savings. A regular trip to the supermarket, she admitted, would inevitably wind up with her spending $18 to $28 on items she didn't intend to buy before entering the store.
Peg Merzbacher, marketing director at Peapod, said she understands how it works. "When you're waiting in line, it's like, 'Shoot, I need batteries' or 'I might as well pick up this Chap Stick,'" she told The Globe. "And it's too embarrassing once they ring up your total to say, 'Oh, I don't really want that.'"
Ms. Merzbacher pointed out that there really are not online equivalents of an end-cap display so "people tend to be much more planned as they buy."
Discussion Questions: Are online grocers missing an opportunity to push their role in reducing consumer expenditures considering the current economic environment? Do online grocers have quantitative information to support the belief that consumers buy fewer impulse items and actually spend less by shopping these services?