Meijer — Local services in Champaign

as a woman who only has time to shop at the later hours of the store and has to go alone, shopping at this store is an incredibly uncomfortable and sometimes terrifying experience.

they have loss prevention employees who are dressed in plain clothes but pretty much follow me around the store everywhere i go. all of these loss prevention employees that follow me are men. so i spend my entire time at meijer being followed around by some man who is clearly not even actually shopping. i'll be in the feminine aisle looking for a product and there will be a man right there pretending to "browse" through the different brands of period pads the entire time that i am in the feminine product aisle. i'll be standing in the cereal aisle trying to decide which one i want and a man will come stand right next to me and pretend to do the same thing i'm doing. then when i leave i see him leave, he has nothing in his hands, as if he only stood there to monitor me while i selected my cereal. i go down several aisles and see another man, a burly man, in every aisle i go down, and he has a completely empty cart, and he just stands there tapping away on his phone, facing right in my direction as i attempt to shop. he had a completely empty cart in the freezer section and was just standing in the middle of the aisle and that's when i decided i was done shopping, terrified of being followed around the entire store by random dudes who CLEARLY were not shopping, just watching me.

i went to the checkout then had to go sit on the bench near the exit to wait for my uber with my cart full of bags next to me. i look over to where the carts are and i see the burly man who had been following me down each aisle, now standing there three feet away from me, pretending to have a conversation with some other man. he had purchased ZERO items and was leaving empty handed after i just saw him following me around the store with a cart. why did he need a cart if he was literally going to purchase nothing at all? oh, because the cart was a prop to make him look like a shopper, not a stalker. then he heads to the exit, but decides to STAND IN FRONT OF THE EXIT DOORS FOR AN ENTIRE 2 MINUTES FACING MY WAY, typing on his phone. he FINALLY exits the building, and i am left feeling like when i exit the building this man is going to be waiting to abduct me. i have never felt so uncomfortable, so disrespected, and so unsafe on something so mundane as a trip to the grocery store. TEACH YOUR LOSS PREVENTION BETTER WAYS THAN DIRECTLY STALKING YOUNG WOMEN WHO ARE SHOPPING ALONE AT 11:00 AT NIGHT. teach your loss prevention to actually make it look like they are shopping instead of wandering around with empty carts, pointing their phones at people and staring at people and looking intimidating. tell your loss prevention that just because someone is standing somewhere for longer than a minute doesnt automatically mean they are stealing, and it doesnt give them the right to invade a shopper's personal space just to monitor them like they're an untrustworthy 5 year old child. it's just ridiculous that i have to leave the store every time with a racing heart and a fear of being abducted all because meijer doesn't care to train their loss prevention how to not act like human...

I have been a Meijer customer for over ten years and overall I am pretty happy with its merchandise and service. But today I was blown away with great disappointment. This morning I placed an online order for two bottles of babyganics shampoo body wash, one bag of newborn diapers and a bottle of seventh generation detergent. The main incentive to buy these was the "online exclusive buy 1 get 1 free" for the shampoo. In the afternoon I got the email telling me the order was ready for curbside pickup. I drove to Champaign Meijer and the gentleman carted out the stuff and put them in my trunk. Everything was smooth. Before driving home, I decided to check my order in the trunk, only to find there was only ONE babyganics shampoo. Well, mistakes happen all the time. So no big deal. Or at least that's what I thought. I picked up the stuff and went to the in-store customer service. I politely asked the lady at the counter to give me another bottle of shampoo. She told me to check the shelf. I checked the shelf and told her it was empty. That's when the whole thing turned ugly. I asked the lady to find me another bottle of babyganics shampoo or give me half price since I bought two using the online coupon. So she called another lady who showed up later and told me it was the digital department that messed up. She asked me why I did not check the stuff before accepting it. I was baffled. How was I supposed to check the stuff in the trunk when I was sitting behind the wheel? Does it beat the purpose of curbside pickup? I continued to ask politely trying to have this issue solved. Give me another bottle or half price honoring your online coupon. I couldn't believe what I was going through. It felt like talking to a stone statue. She basically told me there was nothing she could do. It was not their fault. It was the online purchase department. She apologized in a condescending manner but she could not do anything. Couldn't or wouldn't? That apology was even insulting and it made me feel that I was the person who caused trouble. I am not an expert on micro-expressions but I was sure at that moment that she just wanted me to disappear. I felt upset and confused because of her strangely defensive behavior and poker-face communication. I was too upset to even read her name tag or ask to talk to the manager. I do hope she is not THE manager. In the end, I returned the stuff, losing all my coupons and rewards dollars used in the unsuccessful online order. I told them that it was frustrating and got a shrug off "whatever" from both of them. Today is a bad day for me dealing with these people but I still take the time to write the experience down so that other people can be warned of the debunked Meijer service. Meijer has been a good place for shopping groceries but I feel extremely frustrated talking to these so called customer service persons who have no will in helping...

I have always had good experiences with Meijer in the past. However, this past Saturday, September 23rd was not a pleasant experience. I was shopping for birthday supplies for my daughter's 21st birthday. Among some of my items I was purchasing, was 4 Gift cards to put inside her card. Because I was getting gift cards, I decided to go to a lane with a cashier vs just going through the self-checkout like I normally do. I was behind 2 family's that both had large orders. I waited patiently as I was not in any rush. When it was finally my time to check out, I was not greeted by the Cashier, Kathy, instead I was greeted with "really?! ALL these gift cards?!!" with annoyance. She rang the 1st card up and asked how much I wanted on it, and I replied I wanted $20. I then immediately said, "wait, can I make that $21 instead?" Kathy told me no, and how me wanting to change it was going to make all the people behind me angry. I was told that getting so many gift cards takes too long already. Because she kept making it an issue, the lady behind me suggested I just put cash in my daughter's card and not get gift cards. I was shocked that the cashier was not wanting me to purchase the gift cards, and now I had people behind me telling me not to get them either. I politely declined the idea of just doing cash and had to tell the cashier that I did in fact want to make my purchases that I came to Meijer for. The next card had a minimum of $20 to add and I told Kathy that I wanted $21 on that one, she began telling me that it won't work, I had to do whole numbers. I had to tell her to please try typing $21 in to see if it would accept it, and guess what, it did! I never thought that trying to purchase gifts for my daughter would be such an issue! After I paid, it takes a moment for the cards to become activated, and as each activation receipt was printing out, Kathy REPEATEDLY apologized to the people behind me for how long this was taking and how THIS is why no one should purchase multiple gift cards. The entire experience made me feel very uncomfortable and frankly confused as to why my check out of 6 total items would be such an issue. I will just stick with Walmart, Target, or Schnucks from here on out for...