--- title: "Beyond the Cart: Saving In-Store Grocery | Shockoe" description: "In-store grocery still wins with shoppers, but friction is costing it loyalty. See how accurate inventory, mobile checkout, and staff tools close the gap." canonical: "https://shockoe.com/insights/beyond-the-cart-in-store-grocery/" --- # Beyond the Cart : How to Save the In-Store Grocery Experience in the Digital Age > In-store grocery still wins with shoppers, but friction is costing it loyalty. See how accurate inventory, mobile checkout, and staff tools close the gap. [← Insights](https://shockoe.com/insights/) [Retail & Grocery](https://shockoe.com/insights/category/retail-grocery/) Shoppers still prefer the store, but they expect it to work like their apps. Here is where friction shows up and how grocers can remove it. By Shockoe Marketing Team, June 18, 2026 | 4 min read The short answer To save the in-store grocery experience, retailers have to remove friction between the app and the aisle. In practice that means inventory the app can trust, faster checkout, and tools that free staff for the sales floor. Shoppers still choose physical stores, but they expect those stores to work the way their phones do. *Smiling shopper in a red knit hat checking her phone in a grocery aisle while pushing a cart* You walk into a grocery store after a long day at work. Your list has ten items, but aisle four feels like a maze, your usual pasta is nowhere in sight, and the checkout line reaches back to the frozen foods. The trip was supposed to be quick. Every extra minute makes the next trip somewhere else more likely. Shoppers have not given up on the store. The job is making the physical trip as easy as the digital one. ## Do shoppers still want the in-store experience? They do. FMI’s [2026 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends](https://www.fmi.org/our-research/research-reports/u-s-grocery-shopper-trends) found that 54% of grocery shoppers always shop in-store at their primary store. The same research found that 71% are digitally engaged while they shop, and 54% use retailer apps on their phones in the aisle. Shoppers walk in expecting the store and the app to work as one thing. Our earlier piece on [how mobile rewired grocery retail](https://shockoe.com/insights/mobile-technology-grocery-retail/) covers how that expectation formed. ## Where does friction show up in a grocery trip? In our view, the real competitor of the traditional grocery store is not e-commerce. It is friction. Customers carry the ease of their favorite apps into the aisles, and the store often does not match it: * **An app that does not match the shelf.** It lists an item the store does not have, or hides one that is there. * **Aisles that are hard to read.** In FMI’s research, 69% of shoppers want to find aisles and departments easily. * **Staff pulled off the floor.** Employees counting stock in the backroom are not helping customers. * **Long checkout lines.** The wait at the end of a trip is the part shoppers remember. When the digital experience does not talk to the physical one, shoppers take their loyalty elsewhere. ## How can mobile checkout shorten the trip? Scan-and-go lets customers scan items with their phones as they shop and pay in the app, so the line disappears. In a survey of 1,044 U.S. consumers by NCR Voyix, a checkout technology vendor, 77% of the shoppers who prefer self-checkout said they do so because it is faster. The same survey found that 60% of shoppers who do not use self-checkout would be more inclined to if it were easier with more than 15 items. Because a vendor ran the survey, read it as a signal of shopper preference, not a measure of results at any one store. We design [mobile checkout and in-app experiences](https://shockoe.com/services/) for retailers, and we would start with the basket sizes your shoppers actually carry. ## Can the app guide shoppers to what they need? It can, but we would treat it as a later step. In-app mapping that leads a shopper to the exact item, with a relevant promotion when they reach it, only works when the app knows what is on the shelf. Built on stale counts, it sends people to empty spots. ## What do store employees need from the app? Staff tools matter as much as the shopper-facing ones. For [Hy-Vee’s Fast & Fresh app](https://shockoe.com/our-work/), which serves the company’s convenience and fuel locations, we built curbside ordering where the customer sends an arrival notification and a store-side tool tells employees which order is waiting. Orders reach the people who fill them without anyone watching a screen at the counter. Picture a grocery store that applies the same idea to shelves: an employee gets an alert when a product runs low and goes straight to it, instead of walking the store to find out. That is a hypothetical, not a project we have shipped, but it is the direction we would take. ## What should grocers fix first? Grocery does not have to choose between physical and digital. Both need to work from the same information. We would fix things in this order: 1. **Make inventory accurate.** Every other tool depends on it. 2. **Shorten checkout.** Start with the line, the most visible friction in the trip. 3. **Equip staff.** Give frontline workers tools that bring work to them. 4. **Add navigation and offers.** These work once the data under them is right. If you are weighing where to start, [talk to us about your stores](https://shockoe.com/contact/). ## Frequently asked questions ### How does scan-and-go technology improve grocery shopping? It removes the checkout line from the trip. The shopper scans items as they go and pays in the app, so the store keeps the in-person experience and loses the wait. In an NCR Voyix survey, shoppers who prefer self-checkout most often said they do because it is faster. ### What is the biggest risk in grocery digital transformation? A broken connection between the app and the store. When the app shows stock or prices that do not match the shelf, shoppers stop trusting it, and loyalty follows. ### Why does real-time inventory matter for grocers? Shoppers and staff both act on it. Accurate counts mean fewer wasted trips for customers, and they let employees restock from what is actually missing instead of walking the aisles to find out. ### Do grocery shoppers still want to shop in the store? Yes. In FMI's 2026 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends, 54% of shoppers said they always shop in-store at their primary store. The same research found that 54% use retailer apps while they are there. *Shockoe's Mobile Monster mascot* Shockoe Marketing Team Richmond, VA The Shockoe Marketing Team shares what the studio learns building mobile products and connecting the systems behind them for hospitality, retail, logistics and sports clients. Make your inventory trustworthy, checkout faster, and give staff the tools they need to help shoppers. [Connect app and store](https://shockoe.com/contact) Related insights ## Keep reading [Back to insights](https://shockoe.com/insights/) Retail & Grocery ### [From the Barcode to the Back Pocket: How Mobile Rewired Grocery Retail](https://shockoe.com/insights/mobile-technology-grocery-retail/) 5 min read Retail & Grocery ### [What Is Omnichannel Retail? How Shockoe Helps Create Unified Shopping Experiences](https://shockoe.com/insights/omnichannel-retail/) 7 min read Retail & Grocery ### [The Trends Driving the Grocery Space](https://shockoe.com/insights/the-trends-driving-the-grocery-space/) 5 min read Source: https://shockoe.com/insights/beyond-the-cart-in-store-grocery/