Fred Meyer’s Orchards store is among the first in the regional grocery chain to launch a new online shopping service that allows grocery shoppers to complete the task without setting foot in the store.
Fred Meyer’s “ClickList” service, launched Monday at the Orchards store, allows shoppers to choose grocery items, including meat and produce, online from a computer or mobile device. The order must be made a day in advance of pickup. The company says 40,000 items are available and more are being added. A “Favorites” list on the order form can be used to store regularly purchased items for future reference.
The next step for a customer is to schedule a pickup time, any time between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. Groceries are brought to the car in a newly developed pickup area on the west side of the store, 7411 N.E. 117th Ave. Customers don’t have to leave their cars: payments are taken by Fred Meyer employees using tablets.
To entice people to try the new service, the first three orders are free; after that, the service fee is $4.95, with no minimum or maximum order size.
The Orchard store is just the fourth store in the 132-store Fred Meyer chain to offer the online shopping service. Others that opened this summer or fall are in Portland’s Burlingame and Hollywood districts and in Gresham, Ore. The company will next launch a pickup service at the Gateway store in Portland, and its goal is to offer the “ClickList” service in at least 10 more Oregon and Washington stores next year, said Melinda Merrill, Fred Meyer’s community affairs manager.
Fred Meyer’s corporate owner, Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., has launched the click-and-collect services at 13 of its stores in addition to the Fred Meyer stores, Merrill said. The Harris Teeter chain, another Kroger subsidiary, offers the service at 168 locations.
Paul Anderson, assistant manager of the Orchards store, said the store’s central Clark County location made it an ideal site for the retailer’s first online shopping service in the county. The Orchards store hired 10 new employees to work on the service, he said, and those “head of household shoppers” do the shopping and deliver the orders to customers. The store and its staff can accommodate up to 80 customers per day, Merrill said.
The service unofficially opened to the public Sunday and by late morning Tuesday, it had drawn 32 customers, Anderson said. Response from customers has been positive.
“They love the convenience of it,” he said. “They can come and get their groceries and be in and out without having to get out of the car.”
