Area Supermarket Declared Haunted After Shoppers Move Online
Online food sales rose 15.5% while store sales fell 2.8%. In Topeka, a cart now moves down aisle 7 on its own.
TOPEKA, Kan.—A supermarket on the west side of Topeka was formally declared haunted on Friday after store staff concluded that the only thing still moving through aisle 7 at night was a single shopping cart that nobody had pushed since August.
The declaration, filed on Form HM-4 (Unexplained Activity, Perishables) with the store's fictional regional office, arrived the same week Circana data reported by Grocery Dive showed online food and beverage sales up 15.5% over the four weeks ended Oct. 4, while sales in physical stores fell 2.8%.
"We used to have people in here," said Dolores Fenn, 58, a fictional night manager who has worked the store since 1997. "Now the people are in an app, and the aisles are full of whatever is left when the people leave. I believe that is the definition."
"The people are in an app now. The aisles are full of whatever is left when the people leave."
| Online | 16% |
|---|---|
| Stores | -2.8% |
| Aisle 7, after midnight | -41% |
Source: Circana via Grocery Dive for online and stores; the aisle 7 figure is from a fictional night manager with a flashlight
Staff first noticed the cart, later identified as Cart 0031, on Aug. 14, when it was found at the end of the cereal aisle facing the granola. It was returned to the corral. By morning it was facing the granola again.
By September, according to a fictional incident log reviewed by The Daily SKU, the cart had been observed in aisle 7 on 46 consecutive nights. It does not take anything. It does not make noise, except for a front wheel that clicks at a steady 72 beats per minute. On Oct. 28, an employee draped a bedsheet over it "for consistency," and the store's insurer reclassified the incident from Equipment to Seasonal.
The pickup counter, meanwhile, has never been busier. Brick Meets Click, also cited by Grocery Dive, put online grocery growth at more than 20% in the third quarter. Delivery bags now line the front of the store in rows. Fenn said the bags are the only customers who still say hello, and that they say it in the form of a crinkle.
Continued on page A6, in aisle 13, which the store says it does not have
