Home of the “Phaser” gets a makeover

Back in November Peng wrote a post about the EasyShop scanner at Stop & Shop, or as we like to call it, the “Phaser.” A week or so ago I found out that they were going to be updating their branding to use a logo I had seen on an online survey I did for the store. Today Stop & Shop unveiled their new website with the new branding.

Among the changes on their redesigned website is the ability to have a new set of key tags for their frequent shopper program sent to you (something Peng needed to do since he only had the wallet card and not the tag that goes on his key chain). It also looks like you can now buy your groceries online not just for delivery via their Peapod service, but also to pick up at your local store. It’s kind of hard to make sure because their servers are almost painfully slow today. I suspect that may have something to do with the fact that the site just went online and they’re running a promotion with the chance to instantly win free groceries with one lucky shopper getting free groceries for a year.

One problem I’m seeing is that it seems that when you go to the Order for Pickup page it dumps you to the log in page, even if you’ve already logged in, and getting back to the Order for Pickup takes forever. And then, of course, it asks if you need to sign in again.I’m going to send some feedback to them because I really hope all this is a new site issue that gets fixed soon because if it doesn’t ordering online for in store pickup will take longer than just going to the store and shopping. Without the “Phaser.”

Updated 12:13 pm: I finally got to the Order for Pickup page, and it’s just for deli trays, barker and floral items. And they need at least 2 days notice for your orders.

In addition, the Boston Globe ran a nice story by Hiawatha Bray titled Groceries & Gadgets about the Phaser. There’s also a nice video that shows off some of the additional changes that Stop & Shop rolled out with the EasyShop Phaser, even before they started making over the logo.