For the second and presumably final time, San Diego’s mayor has signed into law a measure requiring grocery stores to make digital-only discounts more accessible to those without digital access. Retailers in the city now have just over two months to come up with plans to comply.
So what are their plans? Nobody knows.
The city council last week unanimously passed a revised version of the Grocery Pricing Transparency Ordinance, which the mayor had previously signed, mandating “in-store alternatives” to digital-only grocery discounts. Mayor Todd Gloria has now signed the revised ordinance, which starts the clock ticking toward its October 1st effective date.
The first-of-its-kind law spells out several key provisions, with which all grocers doing business in the city must comply. The main requirement says any store “that offers digital discounts… must provide in-store alternatives so consumers have access to the digital discount with identical pricing for the same groceries without the need to use electronic or digital technology.”
A second provision requires that digital discounts “must be clearly shown where the discounted groceries are displayed.” So ads in the weekly circular or online won’t be sufficient on their own – stores will need to ensure that shelf tags display the final discounted price, so shoppers are aware of available digital discounts as they shop.
Finally, grocery stores that offer digital discounts must post signs in the store that read as follows:
“Fair Pricing for All: Your Right to Equal Discounts – Under San Diego law, digital discounts must be available to all consumers and participants of loyalty or rewards programs without needing to use a smartphone or the internet, and in-store alternatives must be made available.”
One earlier iteration of the ordinance would have required stores to print paper versions of all digital coupons, while a later version proposed exempting any digital discount offered via a loyalty program, which is essentially all of them. The final version as signed into law eliminates the paper coupon requirement, and appears aimed at advertised digital discounts – the ones featured on signs and in circulars highlighting an “after-coupon” price that’s only available if you clip a digital coupon first. Those are the offers that grocery stores will need to make available to shoppers who lack the ability to clip digital coupons themselves.
But, as written, the ordinance could still be read as applying to all digital coupons available in a grocery store’s loyalty program, raising the prospect that stores would have to come up with a way for all shoppers to access those deals without requiring them to go online to clip them.
When asked, numerous times, how they plan to comply with the ordinance and interpret the ambiguity, not a single grocery retailer doing business in the city of San Diego responded.
Kroger, which operates several Ralphs and Food 4 Less stores in the city, has come closest to preemptively complying with the ordinance. As first reported by Coupons in the News last month, Kroger has begun offering “Weekly Digital Deal scan sheets,” a single-page flyer featuring a bar code that, when scanned at the checkout, will apply all of that week’s advertised digital discounts.
Without mentioning Kroger by name, ordinance sponsor Sean Elo-Rivera gave them a shout-out at last week’s council meeting. “We actually have begun to see implementation of our law,” he said, while sharing the photo shown above. “There are signs now posted in grocery stores saying that these digital deals are made accessible through paper coupons, making it easier for many, many people to access deals that were otherwise evasive to them.”
Kroger-owned stores already display advertised digital discounts at the shelf, and will simply need to add the city-mandated signs to its stores in order to be in full compliance with the ordinance by October – unless, that is, the ordinance is interpreted as applying to every digital coupon that Kroger offers, which it does not currently make available via scan sheets.
Kroger’s main competitor, Albertsons, owns Vons and Pavilions stores in San Diego. Aside from earlier saying that shoppers in its stores “are welcome to present the circular/ad to the cashier for discount(s) at the register,” Albertsons hasn’t introduced a formal policy to offer in-store alternatives to digital-only discounts in its San Diego stores.
Other national chains with stores in San Diego, including Target and Sprouts Farmers Market, and regional chains including Smart & Final, Stater Bros. Markets and Jensen’s Foods, also did not respond to requests for comment about how they plan to comply with the ordinance.
Not all of them advertise all of their digital-only discounts, so it remains unclear the extent to which the ordinance will apply to them. Even if city officials limit enforcement to advertised digital discounts and not every available digital coupon, the signs that stores will be required to display could invite confusion. When shoppers read that “under San Diego law, digital discounts must be available to all consumers,” they may wonder why the store’s “in-store alternatives” aren’t granting them access to all available digital coupon discounts as the signs seem to suggest.
With the backlash against “discriminatory” digital deals gaining momentum, San Diego is the first, but may not be the only, city to regulate them so far. So whatever solution grocery stores choose to implement in the city, they may find themselves implementing nationwide. And if they haven’t come up with a solution yet – they have two months and counting to figure one out.
Image source: Sean-Elo Rivera
