Pick ‘n Pay’s online recipe
Mike Cotterell, GM of online shopping at listed retailer Pick ‘n Pay, says the group continues to invest significantly in upgrading and improving its online shopping offering.
“This is in response to a growing customer demand for a multi-channel shopping experience which brings the website and service in line with best practice.”
The GM said that an important component of the improvements has been to integrate the group’s online service with its smart shopper loyalty reward programme.
“We are now able to offer customers the ability to view, shop and create lists off their previous smart shopper purchases whether made in store or online,” Cotterell said.
“This has significantly reduced the time taken to place orders, which was previously a barrier for first time shoppers. In addition customers can earn and spend smart shopper points as part of the experience.”
Pick ‘n Pay offers a list of the areas to which it delivers on its website. The delivery cost is determined by address and time slot and starts at R60.
“Our online offering is currently weighted towards household and business groceries, beverages, frozen foods, health and beauty products and a range of general merchandise items,” said Cotterell.
He pointed out that the group is increasingly seeing customers’ buying fresh foods including vegetables, fruit and meat as their confidence with the service grows.
“We are actively engaged in growing the business in line with the customer demand and use customer feedback to help define a roadmap of improvements and new capabilities to be launched.”
“As yet we have not included our clothing range online, as we have focused on establishing our new way of working with our food and general merchandise ranges. This is an area we will look at in the future,” he said.
Overhauling
According to Cotterell, Pick ‘n Pay has also completely overhauled the way in which its orders are prepared.
Once received, orders are picked and packed in-store by specially-trained employees using specialised equipment. “Good packaging and maintenance of the cold chain is of paramount importance during this process,” Cotterell stressed.
The orders are also prepared in accordance with the time-slot selected for delivery to ensure maximum freshness, he continued.
The GM maintained that the quality of product delivered by online shopping is of the same standard as the in store offerings.
“Our ‘personal shoppers’ have been specially-trained to ensure they select the best products, and our service also allows customer to return any items they do not wish to keep for an immediate refund and without having to go into a store.”
Cotterell said that Pick ‘n Pay’s online shopping site is part of a wider array of other digital offerings which includes an active social media component; an informative company site which incorporates nutrition; education and sustainability; an engaged recipe community; as well as special websites around particular events such as the Paralympics.
@PicknPay boasts just shy of 12,000 followers on Twitter and has 69,779 likes on Facebook.
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