Carolinas grocer offers busy professionals new online pickup option

Lowes Foods is expanding its omnichannel delivery reach with a new pickup locker option at select locations where customers work.

The Durham, N.C.-based grocery chain is placing Bell and Howell QuickCollect GL temperature-controlled pickup lockers at offices and corporate campuses. This enables customers to have their online grocery orders delivered to their office.

Lowes Foods has installed the first set of lockers for the program outside the Bell and Howell headquarters building in Durham, with orders currently being delivered three times a week. Customers place orders online for next-day delivery to the lockers, which keep purchased items safe and fresh. The lockers provide multiple temperature zones, from heated to frozen, until the customer is ready to pick up their order.

Once an order is placed and has been delivered to the locker, the customer is notified via text or email with a unique pickup code. From there, the customer can scan the code with a mobile device and retrieve their items. Bell and Howell provides maintenance and service for the lockers.

Another regional grocer, Northeast chain Stop & Shop (a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize USA), also recently debuted a temperature-controlled pickup locker option for online orders. Stop & Shop offers the walk-up grocery locker at its store in Boston. 

“We’re excited to take the foundation we’ve built in grocery delivery and layer in a completely new level of convenience,” said Chad Petersen, VP of e-commerce at Lowes Foods. “Our personal shoppers pick, prepare, and stage orders with the quality and accuracy they would as if they were shopping for their own families. Then we take the convenience of contactless delivery to the next level by partnering with QuickCollect Solutions to mobilize that experience for our customers. We are striving to provide as much ease and convenience as we can to ease the stress of our very busy customers.”

Founded in 1954, Lowes Foods operates 80 full-service supermarkets in the Carolinas.