Coupon Kiosks Roll Out To Hundreds More Stores, As Successful Pilot Becomes Permanent

A grocery chain’s answer to the perceived “digital discrimination” against digitally-disconnected couponers will now become a permanent feature in all of its stores.

Just over a year after testing “Savings Station” in-store kiosks in select stores, the Northeastern grocer Stop & Shop has proclaimed the test a success and now plans to introduce the kiosks to all of its more than 350 stores throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.

The kiosks are not the first of their kind – other retailers like CVS, Food Lion, ShopRite and Price Chopper are among those offering in-store kiosks that allow shoppers to access coupons and promotions. But Stop & Shop’s chainwide rollout is the first to take place in response to recent consumer concerns about promotional inequity, that digital-only coupons and deals are discriminatory against those without digital access or know-how.

The Savings Stations are “designed to make digital coupons more accessible for all customers,” Stop & Shop explains. “Designed to bridge the digital divide, this new in-store feature ensures that all customers, especially those who might not be tech-savvy or who do not have access to a smartphone, can easily access the same savings available through Stop & Shop’s digital offers.”

Stop & Shop was one of the first retailers to be called out by consumer groups led by Consumer World’s Edgar Dworsky back in the summer of 2022. At issue were advertised deals in grocers’ weekly circulars that are only accessible by downloading a digital coupon or otherwise “activating” the deal online. Those who didn’t, or couldn’t, were denied the advertised deal.

“If you are a digitally-disconnected senior citizen, a lower income person, or someone of any age not technically savvy, you may pay more for grocery specials like these,” Dworsky explained at the time. “It’s time to stop discriminating against the digitally-disconnected.”

That call to action set off a full-fledged campaign, which culminated in several states proposing legislation that would require stores to offer offline equivalents to all digital grocery offers, or to just give everyone access to all digital offers regardless of whether a shopper is able to “clip” them.

Stop & Shop’s solution was seen as something of a compromise – offering all shoppers a way to access digital deals without requiring them to have their own digital device, without having to print paper coupon equivalents of all digital offers, and without having to bust promotional budgets by giving away all digital coupon discounts to everyone, automatically.

Kiosk users at Stop & Shop can activate all digital coupons featured in the weekly ad with the touch of a button, loading them and all personalized digital deals to their loyalty accounts. Shoppers can’t browse the store’s full digital coupon gallery to load the individual offers they’d like, but they’re still free to seek out paper coupons and use them if they’d like.

Dworsky and his consumer allies praised Stop & Shop’s move. “We salute Stop & Shop for making digital coupons more accessible to everyone including the many seniors and low-income folks who lack internet or smartphone access,” Dworsky said in a statement. “We hope that other supermarket chains follow Stop & Shop’s lead and make it easier for all shoppers to take advantage of digital deals in these times of high grocery prices,” added Chuck Bell, programs director for advocacy at Consumer Reports.

Stop & Shop says about half of its stores will have Savings Stations in place before the end of the year, with the rest in place by the end of January.

“We heard from customers who felt they were missing out on valuable digital coupon savings, and the Savings Station is our response to that feedback,” Stop & Shop President Roger Wheeler said in a statement. “It ensures that our customers can easily access all of our great deals, especially during the holiday season when savings are top of mind.”

The numerous legislative debates over the digital coupon divide have so far not resulted in any new laws. By coming up with their own solutions that enable more equitable access, those who offer and accept coupons aim to ensure that the problem can be solved – without the government’s help.

Image source: Stop & Shop