Kroger vs. Walmart: Who makes online grocery shopping easier?

The pickup station for ClickList at Kroger on Richmond Road starts to get busy about 9 a.m. on a weekday morning.

That’s when Jody Warner of Lexington pulled up. It was only her second time to shop this way, but she’s sold because of the convenience.

“I could stand in my kitchen, look in my fridge, see what I needed and order,” Warner said. “I wish they would have had it when my children were younger.”

Her only complaint about the experience? It wasn’t always easy to find on the app or the website specific items she prefers if she couldn’t remember the exact brand name.

At Walmart on Grey Lag Way, Jennifer Cunningham, who lives in the Hamburg area, was likewise making her second online shopping pickup. She was hooked instantly on the ease.

“Yesterday was my first day and I’m already back. I still haven’t unpacked my paper towels from before,” she said. “I love it. I’ve never done anything so easy in my life.”

She plans to use online ordering for household staples like trash bags and paper towels and for heavy items like drinks “so I don’t have to haul them through the store.” But it won’t replace all her shopping.

“I’ll still have to go through the store,” she said. “You never learn about new stuff if you don’t.”

Since I am having a baby in December, this seemed like a great time to compare the online grocery shopping offered by Kroger and by Walmart.

To test them out, I placed nearly identical orders for 13 items, including something from produce, to see how they stack up.

Both got the orders right, although Kroger had to make a substitution. But this actually ended up working in my favor because the store gave me the larger size Johnson Baby Head-To-Toe Wash for the price of the smaller version and still gave me the coupon for $3 off my next grocery order.

I’m told that Walmart does similar price matching although I didn’t experience it with my order.

In terms of price, Kroger came in slightly under Walmart ($34.99 compared to $36.57) because Kroger accepts coupons for online orders, both those loaded to a Kroger Plus loyalty and paper ones.

To test the quality of the produce, I ordered a pound of green beans from each. I would have ordered less but neither appears to let you select less than a pound. Both were fine, but not great, about what I’d expect from fresh green beans in the grocery store at this time of year. Would I have bought them if I’d been shopping in the store? Probably, but I would have bought less.

For the most part, both stores had the items I was looking for, although not always exactly the same. Walmart’s app showed Cascadian Farm French Vanilla Almond granola, but not the maple and brown sugar flavor.

Which brings up a drawback of the online grocery experience: despite having thousands and thousands of items at your fingertips on both apps, it can be remarkably hard to find what you’re looking for. And neither one replicates the impulse-buy-inducing experience of actually walking the aisles of the store.

Kroger tries to facilitate this by showing you all your most commonly purchased items, your most recently purchased items and things you buy that are on sale. This can be a big time saver. You can stock up quickly on the 100 items you buy routinely. But you won’t know if a brand of pasta sauce is on sale for less than your usual brand unless you look at the entire selection (188 items, according to my store site.)

And Kroger doesn’t suggest items based on what you’ve already put in your cart. Walmart’s does. Did you buy picante sauce? (I did.) Walmart asked if I wanted related items to go with it, which is a big help.

Walmart also lets you add items to your personal list of favorites. And your previously purchased items automatically go there, so if you buy a specific kind of cereal every week you can go right to your favorites and there it is.

Both apps do a good job of letting you know when something is on sale, which also is helpful, and give you a running total of the cost of items you’ve place in your cart.

Both stores do a good job of keeping items the appropriate temperature (frozen things come to your car frozen, cold things come chilled.) Both are eager to give great customer service and will ask if the substitutions they’ve made are OK, make changes if they aren’t, and both want feedback on how they can make the online grocery shopping experience more appealing.

One drawback on loading up: Both stores will bag your items in plastic bags, one or two items at a time. So if you have a big order you’re going to end up with lots and lots of plastic bags.

Kroger will swap them for your reusable shopping bags if they aren’t really busy. Walmart asks that you call after your order is placed and tell them you want to use reusable bags so they leave your items in the baskets unbagged until you arrive.

So, is there a clear winner between the two? Not really. I think for most shoppers the determining factor will be proximity to either home or work. And there Kroger might have a slight edge because it will soon have five locations in Lexington that offer ClickList pickup compared with Walmart’s two.

But if Amazon Fresh ever moves into the area with home grocery delivery, all bets are off. The mammoth online retailer offers home delivery for a flat $15 a month fee for Prime members in a few West and East Coast markets. Meijer also is expanding its online grocery shopping services, although it isn’t available in Lexington at the moment.

Both Walmart and Kroger say customers have said the service is “life changing.”

Kroger has ClickList pickup at nearly 300 stores, with more being added weekly and more expansion coming throughout 2017, said Kroger spokesman Tim McGurk..

“A wide demographic of customers use the service but it seems especially popular for young families, busy professionals, and individuals with mobility issues,” McGurk said in a statement. “There are several options for online grocery shopping but Kroger customers can choose from up to 40,000 items, including fresh produce, meat, seafood and deli items. We believe this variety of fresh products sets ClickList apart from other services.”

Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield said their customers are seeing a similar appeal.

“Who is using it the most is moms, especially of really little ones,” Hatfield said. “They tell us ‘We don’t have to carry an infant carrier through the store, or race through with a cranky toddler.’”

Orders, she said, spike nightly between 8 and 9 p.m., right after parents get the kids to bed.

Walmart Grocery pickup is offered at about 450 stores with more expansion coming.

“Throughout this year have rolled out in many more markets and will continue to roll out. We have plans to increase the level of service because customers have responded so well,” Hatfield said.

This story was originally published October 23, 2016 at 11:08 AM with the headline "Kroger vs. Walmart: Who makes online grocery shopping easier?."