Customers love grocery pickup

Consumers have a positive opinion of the grocery pickup services at supermarkets, according to the latest edition of the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s Retail and Consumer Shipping Study 2022-2023.

For the first time, the ACSI measured customer satisfaction with grocery pickup in the supermarket sector, and found it was consumers’ highest-rated aspect of grocery shopping, winning a score of 86. Accuracy of orders for pickup and speed of service for pickup also scored high at 82.

Other attributes that consumers said they liked about supermarkets were the quality of the mobile app at 83, convenience of store hours at 82 and convenience of store location at 82, all of which were up 1% over year-ago levels.

The supermarket category overall maintained a stable rating with an ACSI score of 76, the same as last year. The top-ranked retailers in the supermarket sector were:

Other retail sectors

Food retailers also scored well in other retail segments of the survey. For example, Kroger was top performer in the drugstore category with a score of 80, the same as last year, outpacing CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens.

Related:The Giant Company drops online grocery pickup fee

Among general merchandise retailers, wholesale warehouse clubs captured the top three slots for customer satisfaction, led by Costco, up 1% to 82. Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club, both up 4%, followed with scores of 81 and 80, respectively.

Pet-product specialist Chewy captured the top score at 85 among online retailers in its first appearance in the index, beating out Amazon at 84. Food retailers that scored well in the online retailer category included Costco and Target, both with scores of 79.

Specialty retailers, led by American Eagle, TJX and Bath & Body Works, were the best-performing retail category with a score of 79.

Overall, customer satisfaction with the retail sector slipped 0.5% to a score of 74.7 in this year’s report. The study includes six retail industries — online retailers, general merchandise retailers, specialty retailers, drugstores, supermarkets and gas stations — as well as consumer shipping and the U.S. Postal Service. The report is based on interviews with 35,685 customers chosen at random and contacted via email between January 2022 and December 2022.

Related:ShopRite store debuts online grocery pickup pod

“While online retailers still lead overall for shopper satisfaction, specialty retailers, with their more targeted product mixes, are gaining significant ground,” said Forrest Morgeson, assistant professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research emeritus at the ACSI. “All told, roughly half of the measured specialty chains post impressive ACSI gains of 4% or more, without any decliners. Compared to other traditional retailers, specialty stores have managed to reduce their supply chain challenges, garnering top marks from customers for merchandise availability and selection.”