Meijer
Client:
Meijer
Release Date:
October 2020
Digital

Magnifying The Shopping Experience For The Pioneer of The Modern Super Market

Meijer is pioneering the future of retail as we know it. With in-store features such as shop and scan, perfectly synchronized inventory status, and interactive store-aware contextual features Meijer is making their grocery store a proving ground for future tech which all retail will soon follow.

The problems

Grocers are unique in that their products are perishable. Meijer and other grocers have a unique challenge in that most of their customers are located in rural areas with limited access to public transportation. This requires Meijer to design its stores to be as convenient as possible and the easiest way to achieve this is to have the store setup in a way that streamlines the customer's path through the store. This is made possible by augmenting their in-store experience with their mobile experience. In addition to this, Meijer is a large corporation with multiple locations. Therefore, it is important that they take advantage of the Enterprise's resources and provide the same level of experience across all of their stores. Leveraging their mobile experience for personalized shopping is a great an inexpensive way to upsell their customers on products that they may not know they need.

Upselling

Upselling other products allows the store to profit from customers who buy items that would otherwise be sold on much lower margins than the operating cost of the store. Profitability of merchandise within a big box retailer varies wildly. For example, groceries are not as profitable as selling household goods. The key to profitability here is to find a way to upsell more profitable goods and services to users who only came to purchase things like groceries.

In-Store Experience

The in-store experience determines the customer's overall feeling about the retailer. The experience of the customer can affect the customer's likelihood to return to the store and the customer's willingness to recommend the store to others. The retailer must focus on creating an experience that is enjoyable for the customer while they navigate the aisles all the way to checkout.

Mobile Experience

Grocery stores need to focus on the customer's mobile experience. The mobile experience should be as good as the in-store experience. It should be simple, intuitive, and fast. There should be some aspects of the experience that are unique to the mobile experience.

Convenience

Customers should be able to quickly and easily find the products they are looking for. The user should not have to waste time looking for a product that they could have easily found. Customers should not have to waste time waiting at the checkout, and scanning items is inconvenient and time consuming.

The Solutions

From the wide breadth of solutions we built for this client,
we handpicked these to showcase for you.
AT A GLANCE

Introducing: Out Of Stock and Suggestions


Meijer wanted to improve the mobile shopping experience by enabling their app to improve the accuracy of product inventory and products that were out of stock. We were brought on to build a feature that would predict out of stock items and notify users of items removed from cart due to stock limitations then offering suggestions. The feature worked by looking at historical shopping data, comparing patterns with other users, and then predicting what users would most likely want to purchase. This feature was brought to market quickly and has shown to increase basket size and increase the frequency of purchase.

Problems Addressed

Mobile Experience

Notable Features

In-Store Stock Tracking

Tracking product's in stock status can be a logistical nightmare, so an intelligent predictive tracking system is used to determine the stock status of items in store.

01

Real Time Cart Updating

If a user adds an item to their cart and that item goes out of stock, the user needs to know that item is no longer available to purchase in real time.

02

Cross Platform Synchronization

The stock and cart status of the user is synchronized across all platforms to prevent redundant alerts and confusing product availability.

03

Suggested Replacements

Through the user's previous purchasing habits and predictive AI, we can suggest alternative products which are currently in stock in the store they are shopping from.

04
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In-Store Stock Tracking

Tracking product's in stock status can be a logistical nightmare, so an intelligent predictive tracking system is used to determine the stock status of items in store.

Real Time Cart Updating

If a user adds an item to their cart and that item goes out of stock, the user needs to know that item is no longer available to purchase in real time.

Cross Platform Synchronization

The stock and cart status of the user is synchronized across all platforms to prevent redundant alerts and confusing product availability.

Suggested Replacements

Through the user's previous purchasing habits and predictive AI, we can suggest alternative products which are currently in stock in the store they are shopping from.

THE RESULTS

Out of stock synchronization and predictive product suggestions allowed for increased basket sizes for customers purchasing volatile items as well as overall increased customer satisfaction due to mitigated distress from losing an in-cart item from a product availability friction point.