When Erewhon Market tapped e-commerce startup Homesome to boost its digital presence last year, one of the California grocer’s main goals was to get as close to replicating its famous experience as possible. in-store for online customers.

Erewhon has also tapped the tech company to help streamline in-store functions, including its high-margin ready-meals business – a star attraction for the specialty grocer. This includes using technology provided by Homesome to help employees find products faster and allow them to manage tasks at the optimal time to avoid delays, efforts that have paid off for the grocer, said Kabir Jain, Erewhon’s Chief Growth Officer.

To do this, the seven-site chain uses Homesome’s technology to determine when instructions should be sent to kitchen associates to avoid bottlenecks at service counters where employees and shoppers pick up prepared goods, did he declare.

“Any customer who visits us in store and has a great experience, then visits us online and it’s not up to par, we risk losing that customer, and that’s not acceptable to us” , said Jain.

Apply online metrics across the enterprise

Erewhon’s adoption of data generated by its e-commerce business to help guide its global operations reflects the growing interest of retailers in using online analytics to make business decisions – especially since the pandemic sparked consumer demand for digital groceries – industry officials said.

It also underscores the connections retailers are trying to make between their online and offline shopping operations as more and more consumers switch between the two channels.

“The huge benefit of online grocery shopping is that it shines a light on your existing store operations,” Barry said. clogproduct manager of Wynshop, another e-commerce technology provider. “E-commerce is not a project that is put aside. It is ultimately just another way for the consumer to shop.”

A key area where online metrics can help retailers strategize is product availability, as digital ordering technology is particularly useful for tracking products at a granular level and detecting potential supply issues, said Clogan, citing customers like Cub Foods and Wakefern Food as examples of retailers making that connection.

Wynshop, formerly known as ThryveAI, also serves grocery chains including Meijer, United Supermarkets, Harris Teeter and Foodland.

Homesome points out to retailers that data on how long it takes staff members to prepare orders for e-commerce shoppers can help them make other decisions about arranging products in stores, said Rahul Chabukswar, the founder and CEO of the technology company. Likewise, data on the items people buy together online can help retailers determine which items to place nearby for in-store shoppers, whose shopping habits may be harder to discern, he said. .

Chabukswar said the company’s goal is to give retailers a “unified view” of their online and in-store operations. “What you should be able to say is, ‘What’s my total and then what’s my e-commerce and in-store split?’ And then being able to derive insight from that so you can actually make meaningful improvements to your entire operation,” he said.

Homesome strives to demonstrate to grocers how sales data collected from their online and physical store can be used in tandem to improve functions such as inventory management, Chabukswar added. The company is developing features for its platform that will make it easier for grocers to merge and analyze in-store point-of-sale transaction analytics with data reflecting online sales, he said.

Smart carts for in-store storage

The attempt by e-commerce companies to help in-store operations comes as retailers increasingly merge online operations and experiences in their stores.

Deli Counters now handle in-person orders as well as those placed through the app. Next-gen stores are encouraging shoppers to use their mobile phones to learn more about the products they’re buying and even place orders while shopping. And in a growing number of places, shoppers can place products in smart carts that automatically scan products, and promise to eventually help them order items that aren’t available on the shelves.

In another sign of this omnichannel shift, e-commerce giant Instacart made two acquisitions last year that took it deeper into grocery stores. The company said its acquisition of restaurant management company FoodStorm would boost its ready meals business. Meanwhile, Instacart’s purchase of smart cart maker Caper aims to make shopping easier for consumers while making it easier for Instacart employees to fulfill orders, according to the company.

Experts said Instacart needed to increase its value to retailers by offering more services, and said the acquisition of Caper, in particular, will help the company collect consumer data on in-store purchases to retailers as well as its digital advertising business.

Other e-commerce platform developers also emphasize the relationship between online and in-store sales. Mercatus Technologies, for example, sees the retailers it works with using data from their digital operations to combat traffic jams in their stores caused by online order pickers walking down the aisles alongside shoppers, said Sylvain Perrier, president and CEO of the Toronto-based company.

“Retailers are starting to understand the volume [online] of orders and gear and gear that they use, and they finally start to realize that maybe it’s time to move to a dark store model, or we’re only going to pick and pack during this time of day and we’re going to get out of the way of our consumers” when stores are more crowded with shoppers, said Perrier, whose company works with retailers including WinCo Food, pig Wiggly Midwest and Stater Bros.

Grocers are also finding that the details they’re able to collect about how online shoppers make purchasing decisions helps them develop strategies to keep stores stocked, Perrier said. Additionally, software used to enable e-commerce helps supermarket chains understand patterns that can help them deploy workers more efficiently and manage absenteeism, he said.

Perrier noted that conventional supermarket chains face intense pressure from tech-focused retailers like Walmart and Amazon, which have invested heavily in tightly integrating their online and physical store operations.

“They’re charting a path forward and trying to figure out where can we innovate in the supply chain all the way to store-level execution, and that’s not necessarily related to e-commerce, but related to business in general,” Perrier said. “I think as a traditional grocer you really don’t have a choice here.”