We all need to sit up and take notice of this. Inflation is on the rise, grocery prices are on the rise, and monopolistic giants are taking advantage of the fact that they are monopolistic giants to steal from the little people. Invest four minutes of your time watching this, because these scams and others are taking place in a grocery store near you.
And it gets worse. For instance, I have groceries delivered a certain amount of the time. if I’m buying things I don’t actually need to see (canned soup, olives, ginger ale, juices — fungible goods, in other words) then I will have those things delivered. It’s less effort, time saved, all that. BUT there are hidden costs that the delivery services tack on.
I’m not talking about the shopping fee, which is a few bucks. Or the membership fee, which is a few bucks a year. Or tipping the shopper. I’m happy to do that, especially tipping the shopper. I’m talking about the fact that to buy six 16 oz. bottles of ginger ale in person is $2.00 or $3.00 less then having the same item run through the delivery system. In other words, there is a separate category of what shoppers are charged for delivery items. So if you’re doing delivery, you’re automatically paying a lot more, because you’re buying from that “menu” if you will, as opposed to going into the store and picking it up yourself.
I have been thinking of taking this matter to AARP, simply because it’s so unfair to older people. Where I live, Smith’s is a big chain of markets and they’re owned by Kroger. Kroger is only too happy to charge me $7.99 for a six-pack of ginger ale bottles that I could get for $4.87 at CostCo or for less at Albertson’s and other places.
So the good people at AARP probably would like to hear about this because so many senior citizens have groceries delivered and so many of us are either on fixed incomes or we’re not exactly flush. We should not be discriminated against in what we pay for groceries, that’s for certain. The “menu” we buy from should have a discount built in, if anything, not higher costs across the board.
Additionally, the actual list of what you can buy via Instacart (or any of the delivery services) is more limited. There are terrific things in the physical store that I can buy if I want to drive there but simply cannot have if I want a shopper to pick them up and there doesn’t seem to be any rational reason for this. (Other than alcohol. There’s a special license for that, but not for particular categories of food or supplies, from what I understand.)
But literally I have gone back to buy a certain kind of frozen food, whatever, and I simply cannot find it. Answer: they took it off of the delivery menu for whatever reason and I can do without.
Kroger’s is crooked. Robert Reich’s tape pretty much established that. And their $15 Milllion-a-year CEO is making that kind of bread by ripping off the likes of me on ginger ale, detergent, simple things.
This is the kind of larceny in plain sight we need to unite against as Democrats for the next election. The grocery store ripoff is subtle and you won’t pick up on it unless you actually start looking, as the Ohio woman in Reich’s video or as I did — to both of our dismay.
publix significantly overcharges. i’d rather go to walmart but they’re out of the way since i’m on a bike. i go there once a week. publix is right around the corner.
Robert Reich is a national treasure.