An ominous shift for newspapers: Kroger ads go all-digital

CNN photo

Kroger, the nation's largest supermarket chain by revenue and a major presence in rural America, announced it is eliminating its long-running newspaper print ads, reports Nathaniel Meyersohn of CNN. "The ads for Kroger stores and subsidiaries, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer and King Soopers, will shift online. Printed copies will be available in stores, the company said." Kroger explained its decision on Twitter: "As a result of declining newspaper circulation and many of our partners reducing or eliminating physical distribution of their newspapers, we're changing the way we get our circular to our customers to ensure they're receiving it." The announcement coincides with the plan of Lee Enterprises, a major national newspaper chain, to reduce most of its papers' print editions to thrice a week.

Not all newspapers have digital platforms, and print ads from groceries have long been one of their biggest revenue sources, if not the biggest. Peter Imes, the publisher of The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Mississippi (which ran a story about the change), told Meyerson, "The loss of the Kroger circulars is a loss for both the paper and our readers." Meyersohn reports, "Kroger is the latest company to discontinue its weekly circular ads. Some companies, such as Walgreens stopped printing coupon catalogs and moved their weekly advertisements online. CVS stopped printing them for newspapers, but some are still in stores." Despite many companies opting for digital only, an unhappy Kroger shopper echoed on Twitter what studies have already shown: "I hate that the ads are going digital. CVS did that, and I very seldom look at it. Nor do I go there as often as I used to. It's a pain in the butt to read digital ads."

Kroger's Twitter post generated negative responses from customers pointing out that "digital only" leaves some people out of the equation: "My 79-year-old mother relies on the printed ad to make her grocery list. You're disregarding the elderly & those who don't have the capability to use apps. Just another business decision to show older customers you don't care for their business." Meyersohn adds, "According to Pew Research Center, 39% of people 65 and over do not own a smartphone, and 25% don't use the internet. Additionally, 24% of adults with household incomes below $30,000 a year don't own a smartphone, while 41% don't have a computer. . . . A Stanford University study in 2006 found that at least 10% of shoppers chose their store based on the week's ads and that shoppers were most influenced when the ads promoted discounts on cereal, chips, pizza, cookies and hot dogs."

At a time when inflation and producer profit-boosting have increased grocery prices, the loss of print ads is especially painful. Meyersohn reports, "This means that millions of older and low-income shoppers — the people who often depend on promotions the most to stretch their dollars — will be shut out of online deals." Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate and founder of Consumer World, told Meyerson, "This becomes inconvenient for shoppers who, up until now, could do easy comparison shopping just by flipping the pages of competing stores' circulars at their kitchen table."