BARBOURSVILLE, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Online grocery shopping is now available in West Virginia. You can do it from your computer or your phone. Pickup is only at the Kroger in Barboursville.
With two kids yelling in the back seat, shopper and mother Kalee Werner is excited about not having to get out of the car.
“You can hear them,” she said. “This is how they react in the grocery store.”
We’ve all been had days like Carolyn Lane’s where we’d rather not leave the car for another reason.
“No makeup,” she said with a laugh. “My hair is brushed but it’s out in the wind, so if anybody sees me, you don’t know me.”
About 40,000 items are available through Kroger’s online shopping program called ClickList. There are a few categories of items you cannot buy online, like alcohol, tobacco, pharmacy prescriptions, as well as hot foods and gift cards.
Shoppers must sign up online, have Kroger Plus Card and use a credit card. Some of your recent purchases will pop up automatically. Select the items you need. Then check out and pick a one-hour time slot for pickup.
Your first three orders are free. After that, a fee of $4.95 will be charged per order.
“That $4.95 is nothing for me because I can stick to my list and not impulsively buy when I go in there,” Werner said. “So I’m probably saving a lot of money even paying that.”
Pickup is now available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“I was over-the-moon excited because of this,” Werner said. “I pull up, I don’t have to get them out of the car, so yes, super excited.”
It means about 20 new jobs for Kroger. Selectors like Logan Troyer can shop for up to six customers at a time. Attendants than deliver the food out of a dedicated area to customers who call when they arrive.
“I will definitely use it,” Troyer said. “I’m all the time working.”
As for the one thing that Lane thinks could be improved upon, “if they’d go home with me and put them away, it’d be a lot better,” she said with a laugh.
ClickList is already available in Portsmouth, Ohio and Maysville, Kentucky.
You can do your shopping the night before or even days in advance as long as there is an opening for your time slot. If you want same-day pickup, you have to give at least four hours of notice.
Perishable items like meat and produce are picked up right before the scheduled pickup time.
Kroger officials say they are then refrigerated or kept in a freezer until the customer shows up. They also tell WSAZ if there’s a mistake, like something is missing, you can call when you get home and they will make it right.
ClickList is offered in about 400 Kroger stores nationwide, out of 2,800 locations overall.
Kroger began online shopping about two years ago. They are testing home delivery right now, but have not made a decision whether that will happen.
There’s been 23 opened in the mid-Atlantic region in less than a year, so more are likely to come to a store near you in the future.
