"ShopRite" news and stories

Years ago, when I was preparing to propose to my wife, I worked with a goldsmith to design a beautiful engagement ring. However, given that I was popping the question in Poland, I thought it best to also pick up a cheaper ring that, while unique, was a bit less expensive. After all, losing a $100 ring while backpacking through Eastern Europe is tough, but losing one that cost a few thousand dollars would be hard to deal with.

Anyway, I decided on a simple silver ring with an engraved lyric on the outside. Since one of my wife's favorite songsmiths is 50 Cent, I chose one of his more famous lines (and one of her favorites) for the inscription. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart found the quote somewhat obscene, and refused to do the engraving. In fact, when I suggested the inclusion of ampersands, asterisks, and "at" signs in lieu of certain key letters, they (somewhat aggressively) asked me to leave the jewelry area.

With this in mind, I feel a certain kinship with poor Adolf Hitler Campbell, of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. A ShopRite in nearby Easton, Pennsylvania apparently refused to write the young boy's name on top of a cake, stating that the store reserves the right to refuse any inscription that they deem inappropriate. This is, apparently, the Campbells' third unsuccessful attempt to get the ShopRite to make a cake for their son; one time, they also asked to have a swastika included in the design.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal's Cranky Consumer column went grocery shopping - online. Many grocery stores now offer the option of shopping online, following in the footsteps of companies that sell groceries online, like Freshdirect and Peapod, but have no retail stores. To take full advantage of the retail location and see how the process worked, the WSJ opted to order online and pickup in-store from 2 national and 3 local supermarkets: Albertson's, Pathmark, Sam's Club, ShopRite and Waldbaum's.

The products at each store were generally found to be of good quality, though a few items were closer to their expiration date than the WSJ might ordinarily have selected. All of the stores took care to ensure that frozen and refrigerated goods were kept at appropriate temperatures until the very minute of pickup and some even had dedicated checkout lines for online shoppers.  But none of the stores were entirely without problems.