I share a weekly ritual with many women across North
Texas…grocery shopping. My routine consists of agonizing over a menu full of
nutritious and interesting meals, creating an exhaustive shopping list, and
head out to the store with my reusable shopping bags. Sometimes I browse the
sale ads from all the local stores (Tom Thumb, Kroger, Albertson’s, Central
Market, Sprouts) but I almost always end up at my local Walmart Supercenter.
OK, please keep you Walmart shopper jokes to yourself…I
proudly own my Walmart shopper’s card. (You’ll never find me on
that sight, by the way.) I like that I can get all my shopping done in one
store. I can get my shampoo and razors at the same store where I buy my Dr.
Pepper and chocolate. I can’t complain about the prices either…no hassle with
loyalty cards either. Just “Low prices. Every day. On everything.”
Walmart is one of the companies that people love to hate. Recently, the Huffington Post printed an article about employee wages. Apparently, the CEO makes
a “little bit more” than the average store employee, but what CEO doesn’t? I
personally have one of those “love-hate” relationships with our local Walmart
stores. I love their low prices, who doesn’t? What I do not love is the fact that I
have to choose between waiting way too long in line for an employee to check
out my basket of groceries or going through the self-check with $250+ work of
groceries. That was until Walmart opened a new store in Highland Village, a
cozy lakeside bedroom community in North Texas.
While I have been known to joke about my community being a
bunch of “tree huggers,” I do love that both Highland Village and Flower Mound
have processes in place that keep developers from stripping our communities of
their aging trees. To demonstrate their commitment to our communities, Walmart
completely redesigned their typical storefront to accommodate for a 125-year
old pecan tree. The exterior is described as resembling a Texas ranch, with the
infamous Walmart signage minimized. If you were new to the area, you might
miss it all together.
I won’t go into the horrible experiences I have had at other
local Walmart stores (ahem…Lewisville Main Street Walmart, you know what you
did). Let’s just say that I actually enjoy my Walmart experience now that I
shop regularly at the Highland Village Walmart. If it wasn’t for the low
prices, I might actually forget I’m shopping at a Walmart.
Now…a little side note: Those of you that know me, know that
I’m a little bit of a techy, just a little bit. I really like my iPhone; you
will rarely find me without it at my side. A few years ago, I experimented with
using an app called “Grocery Gadget” to plan my grocery shopping trips. I won’t
go into the technicalities of that app; you are welcome to look for it in the
app store of your favorite mobile device. I was pleased to walk into my Walmart
and see this kiosk:
You might remember another grocery chain trying something similar with hand-held scanners about 10 years ago. Albertson’s added it to
their stores in hopes of better competing with Walmart, who had bumped
Albertson’s from #1 to #2 in grocery store popularity in the DFW area. However,
it didn’t catch on and within a year or two, Albertson’s had pulled the
technology. Walmart’s “Scan & Go”
system is only being offered in a select few supercenters and I like being on
the cutting edge of things, so I decided to give it a try.
Come back tomorrow and I'll let you know what I think: Using “Scan & Go” for the
first time.
No comments:
Post a Comment