Picking up a loaf of bread from the grocery store just got technical.
Niemann Foods Inc. piloted a beacon program in eight County Market grocery stores in Springfield, IL, in February 2014. It then made 20 changes to its app based on customer feedback and now is deploying beacons to all 45 of its County Market stores by Q3 2015, says Nathaniel Jones, electronic marketing manager at Niemann Foods.
Beacons are small hardware that retailers can place anywhere in a physical store that pinpoint the location of a smartphone with a retailer’s app via Bluetooth Low Energy wireless networking technology, common on all newer smartphones. If a consumer has the retailer’s app on her smartphone, a beacon can send her a push notification with a message relevant to her exact location in the store.
County Market rolled out the beacon program within its myCountyMarket app. The chain has promoted the app to consumers via the weekly flyer, e-mails, in-store signs and text messages, urging customers to download the app for in-store, location-specific offers. So far, about 3,000 consumers have downloaded the app, and 2,000 consumers have created profiles in the app. The grocer offers Apple iOS and Android versions of the app. Jones would not disclose the cost of the beacon deployment.
County Market’s pilot stores have experienced varying degrees of success with their offers, with anywhere between 5-50% of consumers opening the offer in a push notification. One offer advertised 10% off a total purchase: 50% of consumers who received that offer opened it, and 20% of those consumers redeemed it, Jones says. The store’s most redeemed offers are in the deli and bakery, Jones adds.
The stores use Birdzi Inc.’s beacons to offer customers in-store promotions tied to a shopper’s loyalty card. When the myCountyMarket app offers a coupon, a consumer touches the activate button, and when the shopper checks out, the grocer automatically applies the savings. The offers will typically promote an item that a consumer is near, or a complementary item, such as jam when a consumer is in the bakery section.
The offers entice shoppers to continue purchasing, Jones says. For example, if a shopper is near Barilla pasta, the app can deliver a $1 offer coupon for the pasta. The shopper may not redeem that discount on that visit to the grocery store, but the discounts will accumulate within a shopper’s app and will be applied when a shopper hits a designated mark. Once shoppers accumulate $3 worth of discounts, for instance, the app delivers a message suggesting the shopper redeem the offers on their next trip to the store.
A store typically has one or two beacons per aisle or section that can reach consumers within 15-30 feet. Shoppers are limited to receiving three offers per store visit. The grocer has set up the system so that it does not deliver the same offer to the same shopper twice in one week; that way, shoppers do not perceive offers to be spam, Jones says.
County Market has between 25 and 30 weekly offers that it rotates. The offers are on a first-serve basis, so as soon as shoppers walk by a beacon they will receive that offer if they have not yet received it that week.
“That’s very key with beacon technology—not to become stagnant,” Jones says. “Customers gets tired of seeing the same thing. The wave of the future is personalizing mobile content and keeping it fresh.”
Follow mobile business journalist April Dahlquist, associate editor, mobile, at Internet Retailer, at @MobileInsiderAD.
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