AARON FLOERSCH, OPERATIONS

Ray's Apple Market

We signed up with RSA America hoping to prove a strong consumer engagement with the right mobile technology to meet maximum customer retention. Their proposed strategic approach offers us a way to get our consumers directly involved, and we had our tool to battle our rival. We got results within 6 months, their advice on exclusive deals helped us to produce over 3 percent extra profit margin. Real data is important and hence analytics help us get daily reports about our weekly sales, different department sales, coupon analysis, Ad movement, etc. We have taken our business decision using the figures we get because there is no doubt over data.

The only piece of advice I would like to send to my other fellow independent grocer is that as our industry is changing, we need to change to stay relevant. We are the last to do so since our competition dollar generals already did it. This is a perfect weapon to counter Walmart because they find it a gimmick and it does not suit them.

STEVEN LINES

WM Grocery

Steven Lines, Operations Manager at WM Grocery, an Alabama-based indie grocery chain, pulled all of his stores' direct mail advertisements before implementing technology, and they immediately saw a 10% decrease in sales. But even prior to the drop, Lines was spending over $400K on their direct mail strategy and the cost of print and postage was continuing to increase and they were no longer seeing ROI.

The stores had been trending down since the pull of the direct mailing of their ads, and this was very concerning for them. They came on board with RSA America, and the stores saw a complete turn around in sales and started trending upward for the first time in two years, circling close to positive numbers they use to experience during their pre-direct mail days, along with increasing profits.

With Lines operating four stores throughout the state of Alabama, the company has seen about an average of an 8 % sales increase in just a short period of time since partnering with RSA America and using mobile technology in their stores.

MIKE MILLER

Miller's Market

Mike Miller, VP of Operations at Millers Markets with locations in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, shares a similar experience with Lines and WM Grocery. Millers Markets pulled their advertising distribution in all 12 of their locations and cut $3M off their print ad budget in only a year. Once Miller realized they could reinvest these savings back towards the costs of goods via a mobile application, they could reach more consumers and drive sales, which would equate to more profit. After using the RSA America platform and solutions, Millers Markets saw, at minimum, a 100% increase in vendor funding and product placement, too.

“…You have an opportunity to drive sales, cut costs, acquire vendor funds, and increase vendor paid coupon money while putting more money to your bottom line. Customers are more engaged and it goes to show we can now offer the same programs as the bigger, stronger [corporations] we all compete with.”

ELLIOT CHRISTENSEN

Elden's Fresh Foods

Elliot Christensen, President of Elden’s Fresh Foods, a 24-hour independent store in Alexandria, Minnesota, credits RSA America’s mobile application and easy-to-use platform as the main reasons their store is experiencing success. Out of a 25K township population, 17K of those people are registered on Elden’s Fresh Foods mobile application and distribution list. This equates to more than half of the area’s population receiving their store’s communications and deals. The store saw an immediate increase in foot traffic and customer visits.

Once the store decided to discontinue the distribution of their print ad in May 2019, Elden’s Fresh Foods saved more than $150K in expenses. They were then able to reinvest that saved money towards the mobile application, loading it with free items and special offers for their customers.

“We’ve invested probably $175-$200K in this digital [platform] in the way of funding free items and the markdowns [for our customers] and then on the backside, we are going to get the savings back to the tune of $150K by not distributing our ad. We’ll get our payback in about 18 months. And we’re happy with that.”

JORDAN WHITE

White's Foodliner

White’s Foodliner stores showed signs of distress in 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 before 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, the food stores successfully launched an online e-commerce site and cut costs by 50%.

“We put together a mobile strategy that worked. 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.

A piece of advice White wants to leave with fellow independent grocers struggling with mobile technology use is to choose the right application. “Mobile users are not struggling with getting data. If you, as a grocer struggle, 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.”

MIKE RATH, Director of IT

LEWIS DRUG

Over the last 2 years, we have been working with RSA America and the real reason we approached them was to get us on the digital platform. We initially experimented with nearly thirty thousand shoppers to monitor their use of promotional coupons and to get their basket details. Reports such as loyalty bonus points, coupon redemption were important for our business to take strategic decisions because we believe we must know our guests to remain in the game. We are in this business for 75 years and we have a very satisfactory retention rate for customers today and we connect directly with our customers using our tool.

Learn more from the customer data as RSA America will help you get closer to your customers, and eventually, you will generate more and believe everyone that it works.