‘Corporate wants to save money’: Frustrated shopper explains why Kroger’s ‘premium’ strategy backfiring. Then the comparison gets brutal

Grocery shopping sucks at the best of times. But when it’s Sunday night and a majority of the check-outs are closed it can be an outright nightmare. This was the plight of one man on TikTok who decided to air out his grievances with grocery store chain Kroger after a particularly frustrating shopping trip.

TikTok account, Dollars With Drew, usually focuses on all things finance-related, but one terrible experience at his local Kroger led to the TikToker picking up his phone and recording a few complaints. We see the closed self-checkouts, which Drew claims causes “massive lines down here waiting forever.” He shows the mass of people who are just trying to buy food on a Sunday night.

The issue with Kroger

Drew goes on to say, “It’s one thing if Kroger had cheap prices like Walmart right, you know you’re getting terrible service at Walmart.” The problem is that the grocer chain has “sky-high” prices on all its items, but it doesn’t give higher quality customer service. Kroger is somewhat notorious for it’s pricing methods that are borderlines hostile towards consumers, people have long been complaining about the price difference between Kroger and its competitors. So what’s the point in shopping there?

The short TikTok video concludes with Drew telling his viewers to just shop elsewhere instead. In his words, “you might as well just go to Walmart, get the same bad service, same long wait times, but get the cheapest price.” He has a point you know. Cost of living continues to rise making life for Americans a daily struggle. With money tight as it is for millions of families across the country right now it makes sense to go for the cheaper options.

There’s just not enough staff

Drew pointed out in his video that there wasn’t enough staff. In the comments, people who had previously worked at the grocery store chain seemingly alleged that it was because Kroger refused to hire the correct amount of staff so that corporate could save money. One user claimed to work at a branch in Arizona, they stated that “it is 100% because corporate wants to save money. they’d rather not hire enough cashiers.”

Another supposed Kroger employee claimed the chain doesn’t give enough hours, “trust me they hire plenty of help but give the bare minimum hours. the more hours they give the less their bonuses.” If that’s true then that’s a real sleazy business tactic.

Brutal comparisons

Regardless, many of the comments simply argued over with grocery chains was the worst. Some agreed that Kroger was terrible and Walmart or any other chain was superior, while others defended Kroger and criticized the alternatives. One person commended Walmart for not having wait times while another contradicted them, “Walmart has no sales whatsoever. I can usually get stuff cheaper at Payless which is owned by Kroger.” A third person wrote that they’d prefer to shop at Walmart, Sam’s Club, or Aldi.