
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 15, 1995                   TAG: 9511150027
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PAPER, PLASTIC OR SILICON? SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES ONLINE

So, when was the last time you left work at the end of a hectic day and thought to yourself, "Boy, I can't wait to go to the grocery store''?

Exactly. That's why The Kroger Co. is testing an online grocery service in its Columbus, Ohio, division. The World Wide Web supermarket lets shoppers browse through virtual "aisles" of groceries and select items for their "shopping baskets" - all while sitting at home or in the office. For an extra $10 - or 10 percent of the bill on orders of more than $100 - a climate-controlled Kroger van will even deliver the groceries to the shopper's door. Customers pay when their orders are delivered.

"We need to do everything we possibly can to make the shopping experience as easy and as pleasant as possible," says Dale Hollandsworth, advertising manager for Kroger's Columbus division.

The cyberspace supermarket, which officially opened Tuesday, includes an interactive customer service area, where you can send e-mail to Kroger or find the location of any of the company's 1,330 stores nationwide. The Kroger computer folk also are putting together a product information section that will offer recipes, nutritional information and advertisements.

If you don't live in Columbus - and, since you're reading this, you probably don't - you can't order groceries or prescriptions from the Internet store. But Web users anywhere in the world can send bouquets through Kroger's online floral service, which is at the same Internet address - http://www.foodcoop.com/kroger/.

So, why is this being tested in Columbus and not in, say, Roanoke? Because, Hollandsworth says, Kroger's Columbus-area marketing people have been working on technological advances for quite a while, and because Columbus is one of just three Kroger regions that already offer home delivery.

But that doesn't mean we'll never be able to shop for groceries from our armchairs. Archie Fralin, spokesman for Kroger's mid-Atlantic region, says the company has tentative plans to test the Internet idea at its Blacksburg Kroger store. Start looking for it after the first of the year.

That would make Kroger an electronic competitor of Wade's Foods, a New River Valley supermarket chain, that has been online on a limited basis for about 18 months.

Wade's receives orders at http://www.bnt.com/~wades. The chain started by offering a worldwide floral service; in August, it began selling care packages - bags of groceries that parents can send to their hungry college kids. And Wade's just started selling Christmas hams that can be sent anywhere, says David McIntyre, the company's director of computer operations.

Having trouble picking out a Christmas present for your baby sitter's 4-year-old daughter? Not sure about the safest way to decorate a Christmas tree? The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is offering a series of holiday-related pamphlets that can tell you:

How to select age-appropriate toys.

How to choose a fresh Christmas tree.

How to buy products safe for babies.

To get a list of the CPSC's publications, send a postcard to Publications List, CPSC, Washington, D.C., 20207. Call the Commission's toll-free hot line - (800) 638-CPSC - to report unsafe products, find out whether a product has been recalled or get information on what to look for when buying a product. The hot line's TTY number for the hearing- or speech-impaired is (800) 638-8270.

To get product recall information over the Internet, gopher to: cpsc.gov. To file a product complaint or report a product-related injury, e-mail to: infocpsc.gov.

If you run into questionable sales practices while you're doing your holiday shopping, or if you have questions about all the charities that seem to spring up around this time every year, check out the online complaint service that the Council of Better Business Bureaus recently launched.

Just visit the CBBB's Web page, located at http://www.bbb.org/bbb/. The site also gives you access to online charity information and the text of many BBB consumer advice publications.

Of course, you can still file complaints the old way - the online service hasn't taken the place of your local BBB office.

by CNB