Heinen’s Helps Show the Way on Pricing
Pricing and pricing transparency is getting more sophisticated for smaller food retailers, and the latest example of that comes from Heinen’s, an upscale Midwestern grocery chain with stores in Ohio and Illinois.
The grocer has struck a deal with technology provider Engage3 to expand the merchant’s omnichannel competitive visibility and analytics with Engage3’s Competitive Intelligence Management (CIM) product. The move comes months after Heinen’s rolled out a new online grocery retail site, a project built and operated by Instacart Enterprise.
CIM will allow Heinen’s to achieve the most comprehensive competitive pricing visibility, while leveraging its machine learning-powered product linking capabilities to attain a contextualized view of their competitors’ equivalent items at the localized market level.
“In our search for a SaaS competitive pricing partner, Engage3 was the clear frontrunner. They had all of the capabilities that we were looking for to execute our pricing strategy and we believe their private label matching capabilities will be superior to our previous partners,” said Kim Heinen, the chain’s packaged goods manager.
CIM is currently in use at six of the 10 largest retailers in North America and provides the most comprehensive view of competitive pricing activity to retailers, according to Engage3. By combining in-store data collection, online web scrapes, and ad-hoc data collection within the Missions App, retailers can see store-level pricing for all of their competitors.
“Heinen’s upscale offerings of the highest-quality foods and the greatest assortment has earned them a great following of loyal customers,” said Edris Bemanian, CEO of Engage3. “We are thrilled to partner with them in enhancing their competitive pricing visibility and powering their product linking analytics, to set pricing that resonates with their shoppers.”
Founded in 1929 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, by a local butcher named Joe Heinen, Heinen's has grown to 23 total store locations, with 19 stores in Cleveland and four stores in the suburbs of Chicago. Heinen's employs more than 3,500 associates.
