Digital screens are covering the cooler doors of stores like Kroger, CVS and Walgreens, and they’re driving TikTokers crazy

• Retailers like Kroger and Walgreens are installing screens on cooler doors to display ads.
• But some customers say screens make shopping difficult and they prefer the old-fashioned glass doors.
• TikTok videos showcase buyers’ biggest pain points, from long ads to broken screens.

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Large screens are taking over the doors in the frozen and refrigerated food sections of retailers like Kroger and CVS. But customers on TikTok are reporting a problem: They make it harder to find items on your shopping list.

Screens have come into stores over the past few years. Many coolers are made and installed by Screens, a company founded by the former CEO of Walgreens.

The company has said Cooler Screen can update inventory in real time, show ads to customers and even use cameras and other sensors to learn details about a shopper and show them tailored ads. Can do. Cooler Screens says it plans to reach 200 million customers with its digital doors by the end of this year.

But some buyers think that plain old glass doors work just fine.

TikTok user cinema_singularity said he doesn’t like waiting for a commercial to end to see what’s actually in the cooler and how much everything is, he said in a video posted to TikTok earlier this month .

“You just have to wait until the ad is over so you can see which drink to get,” he says in the video.

He added, “We didn’t need it.” “We had glass. It was fine!”

“Glass is pretty adept at seeing through,” user Trevorcarion said in a video posted in 2021.

Trevorcarion says in the video that the screens allow advertisers to target customers with ads for specific products.

For example, he cites a Wall Street Journal story, which quotes a marketing manager at MillerCoors as saying that screens could help the beer maker sell more beverages at drugstores like CVS and Walgreens. .

“Because if Americans aren’t buying alcohol in their drugstores, advertisers aren’t doing their jobs,” he says in the video.

User donwitmadness also took issue with the ads in a video posted this month and filmed at a Kroger store.

“You can’t just look through a glass door and find what you want,” he says, walking down an aisle of cooler screens as he alternates between ads and inventory. Are. “You have to sit down for the five-second ad break.”

Cooler Screens, CVS and Walgreens did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on the TikTok video.

User pjhackman pointed to a more basic problem with the screen. The 2022 video they posted shows a screen that is not displaying any of the food inside. Instead, customers have simply been given a notice stating that the screen is defective.

Quickly opening the cooler to reveal a variety of frozen meals inside, however, ranging from corn dogs to burgers.

Have you seen a digital cooler screen while shopping? Let us know what you think. Reach this reporter [email protected]

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