Google Maps Making Grocery Shopping Ridiculously Easy

While many still consider Google Maps the go-to app for everything related to navigation, the service has evolved substantially in the last few years to become a fully-featured platform providing access to a wide array of other features.

Google Maps Making Grocery Shopping Ridiculously Easy

By Bogdan Popa

Earlier this year, for example, Google announced that Google Maps would support pickup service functionality across the United States, and now the company has joined forces with Kroger for such features in a total of 96 stores in the country.

Customers in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana will benefit from the integration, with Google Maps letting them add order information and then get a reminder when it’s time to leave to the store for grocery pickup.

The integration goes even further by providing information to the store directly, so by adding the order to Google Maps, the staff can know exactly when customers are supposed to arrive. The ETA is shared with the store directly from Google Maps, so overall, the pickup is much more seamless.

Needless to say, the whole navigation to the store is powered by Google Map as well, so at the end of the day, the new integration is supposed to provide customers with a more straightforward way to pick up their groceries from one end to the other.

Google and Kroger are already planning to expand their collaboration to more stores across the United States, but additional information in this regard would be shared at a later time.

In the meantime, Google is also improving Google Map on multiple fronts. As far as the navigation is concerned, Google wants Google Maps to become an eco-friendly driving companion, so in addition to the fastest route, the app would also show the most fuel-efficient alternative.

To do this, Google Maps will analyze data like road incline and traffic to determine the carbon footprint of your car until you reach the destination, therefore being able to provide a more eco-friendly route as an alternative to the fastest one.

Originally published at Auto evolution