Western Beef Adopts Online/Mobile Shopping Tech
Western Beef has implemented at its Bronx, N.Y., store a customized promotions engine from Self Point that enables customers to shop online, find special offers, and check out quickly and securely. Since the new shopping experience launched last month, the discount food retailer has seen a 10 percent higher conversion rate month over month.
“Our platform allows Western Beef customers to shop online or on the go and to find the best deals — all while enjoying the store’s passion for offering a wide selection at a great value,” said Mike Haaf, executive chairman of the board at Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Self Point, which also has an office in Israel. “With real-time metrics, we help Western Beef to be more responsive to their shoppers’ preferences. The results have been phenomenal, with return visitors increasing by 30 percent since the beginning of the program.”
The ecommerce solution was integrated into Western Beef’s point-of-sale system, business processes and reporting infrastructure. The technology streamlines implementation by building product catalogs and store maps directly from online and in-store transactions. Additionally, for Western Beef, Self Point created a custom merchandising tool and enhanced search function, allowing shoppers to view as many as five subcategories of products by brand, best-sellers and other customer preferences.
Self Point learns individual shoppers’ buying behaviors, both in-store and online, thereby enabling targeted offers to be delivered as push notifications, emails or special messages on home page of Western Beef’s website. Along with an electronic version of Western Beef’s existing weekly circular, Self Point facilitates the creation of shopping lists from earlier orders with a single click. The lists can be created and edited from home or mobile devices seamlessly, and all of the rich data are captured to continuously deepen the relationship with the shopper.
“By providing a mobile-friendly, online shopping experience, we’re able to deliver more relevant messages and offers,” noted Western Beef President and CEO Peter Castellana Shoppers are benefiting from the easy, fast service, while feeling even more connected with us.”
Further, according to Castella: “Self Point provided in-depth training, answered questions from various team members and walked with us every step of the way to ensure a successful launch of our new digital storefront. We look forward to expanding the program to one of our Manhattan stores in the coming months.”
Ridgewood, N.Y.-based Western Beef operates 28 high-volume warehouse-style supermarkets in New York, New Jersey and Florida. The company also runs its own meat, grocery and produce warehouses.