THThe Kroger Co.★★★★★
Great store employees but long long wait and short staffing at checkout
Trips to our local Kroger store have been frustrating lately due to the extreme lack of cashiers manning registers at regular lanes. Today there was only ONE cashier available in the whole store! With several carts ahead of me and even more customers in line behind me, I reached out to an employee who was passing by to ask if they could please open another lane. He accommodated the request but came back to tell us that there was nobody available! The self-service check-out area was really backed-up, too. Our local store has TWO self-service areas; one area also includes a self-service LANE that has a long belt similar to the regular register lanes -- large enough to handle big orders of thirty items or more. What is most annoying about the limited staffing and the push to have customers using the self-service area is that the side where there is the long self-service lane is often closed, just like it was today! I've wondered why store staff made the decision to close the area that has an actual lane -- is it because it is further away from the customer service desk? Does it lack security features to minimize the risk of thefts? Is it broken? Who knows?
The only reason for the three-star rating is the calibre of the staff in our local store. Most are exceptionally kind and willing to help, such as the young man who immediately accommodated the request for help -- even though he himself was powerless to do anything about it.
2026-07-24
MEMeijer★★★★★
Deceptive In-store coupon policy
Meijer has had a diapers and wipes in-store coupon promotion where a purchase of $70 or more in diapers and/or wipes would earn a $20 coupon 'good on next in-store purchase.' I purchased 3 jumbo boxes of diapers and a package of wipes that easily 'earned' the $20 coupon off next order. I split the very large purchase we were making that also included groceries, toys, and clothing, including some clearance items. I asked the cashier if the coupon could be used on the second half of our order. She said 'sure' and added that a customer had done the same earlier in the day. So far, so good. The register spit out the coupon and I used it toward the rest of the order, totalling over $50. As we were both watching the tally on the register, we noticed something odd. The system didn't take $20 off, but only $12 and change. I mentioned that maybe I had that much in M-Perks built up and asked whether the coupon wouldn't be activated until 24 hours later and asked for my coupon to be returned. She said that the register was showing the the coupon had already been applied! An associate was sent to customer service to find out why only $12 and parts was taken off and not the $20. The answer was that it had something to do with buying clearance items and the coupon not being good on clearance items. Yet not every item on that half of the order was 'clearance.' That part of the order, though, did include some baby items that were buy one, get one 40% off. The tags on the merchandise shelves have very small print, and it didn't look like those small tags included any text disclaimer on limitations for the coupon use. The cashier got some assistance from another associate to remove the $12 and cents discount and to reverse the coupon, but the system wouldn't budge. It still behaved as if the coupon had been applied. The cashier took the coupon and got a customer service associate to mark it with the promise that the coupon will be honored next time we shop there. I want to trust that, but should I? Meijer's register-level accounting and coupon policy seems pretty sketchy to me. Nobody had been able to explain why only $12 and change was discounted! I sincerely hope that it wasn't some M-Perks mix-up so that now there could be fewer M-Perks. And, if coupons are not supposed to work on orders with clearance items, then why didn't the system just reject the coupon in the first place? There is definitely something weird about how the registers have been programmed to accept the coupon generated by the diaper sale promotion.
2025-09-06Helpful 1
