Partner: White’s Foodliner
https://www.whitesfoodliner.com/
Brief Summary
White’s Foodliner stores showed signs of distress when it came to using mobile technology in their operations: from promotions and coupons to customer engagement and communication. In 2017, the supermarket chain was on schedule to go-live with online shopping weeks prior to starting a partnership with RSA America, but they were not ready. After meeting the RSA America team and turning over their mobile technology to them, within a year’s time, the food stores successfully launched an online e-commerce site and significantly cut costs by 50%.
“We put together a mobile strategy that actually work[ed]. We also desperately wanted off our loyalty program we had been on for 10 years, yet were very apprehensive about changing. RSA gave us the perfect footprint for changing to our new loyalty, digital platform,” said Jordan White, general manager of White’s Foodliner.
Background
White’s Foodliner suffered from the usual woes of small, independent grocers:
Lack of understanding consumers, including their demographics, purchase behaviors and patterns
Lack of a mobile strategy & solution
Decentralized marketing plans & budgets; and
No opportunity to manage dynamic pricing – the store had no easy way to change pricing and communicate with consumers in real-time
Proposed Solution
Once RSA America realized this, they offered a plan that could solve many problems:
RSA suggested a fully integrated mobile solution that included: Web, Mobile, Social Media, Email Marketing, Point of Sale, Consumer Insights, CPG & In-Store Promotions where everything could be managed from one central dashboard.
Methodology
Here’s how RSA did it:
Step 1: Implemented RSA proprietary solution and eliminated all other digital marketing channels, including card-based loyalty/reward programs.
Step 2: Promoted the rebrand to all consumers with a sign-up offer to migrate them to the new mobile application and platform.
Step 3: Executed an 8-week marketing program, which included: Deals of the Week and One Day Specials, and three consumer touch points per week.
Step 4: Identified shoppers and placed them in different groups based on basket sizes, purchase behaviors, zip codes etc.
Step 5: Began targeted promotions to various groups of people to increase basket sizes, visits and overall grocery spend. Reviewed analytics. Repeat.
Results
After being in partnership with RSA America for just one year, the mobile solution cut the food store’s loyalty costs by 50% and cut giveaways from $3,200 to $2,000 a week. Three locations underwent complete remodels of Dollar General stores with one store putting in a produce section. All of this was accomplished while still capturing shopper data for future marketing plans. Other positive results included:
> Reduction in printing & mailing costs
> Increased shopper frequency and basket size
> Increased overall store revenue and profitability with targeted marketing promotions & dynamic pricing capabilities
> Improved negotiation with brands for trade/marketing dollars due to better customer insights and analytics
“Kroger has a team of 800 people- and it’s all they do. What do you think Amazon has? This [customer] data is necessary—Because our competitors are using it against us,” stated White.
Analysis
The result of a new mobile solution for White’s Foodliner stores concluded with:
> Higher utilization of the mobile platform
> Happy consumers
> Increased loyalty
> Increased store revenues and profitability
Conclusion
A piece of advice White wants to leave with fellow independent grocers struggling with mobile technology use is to make sure to choose the right application.
“Mobile users are not struggling with getting data. If you, as a grocer, are currently struggling that means your technology isn’t working. In a land where everyone has a mobile app, you better make sure you are using the right one. The right one is the one that customers of all ages can use, enjoy and is extremely user friendly for the grocer to analyze and track some simple data. Let RSA help you with the rest—it’s what they do.”
