Associated Retail Operations (ARO) recently soft launched their first StoreFront Pro site, specifically for their Fresh Market Banner. They chose to launch at one banner to help them better work through the store training, coordination with Instacart’s teams, as well as challenge their sales teams to focus on the initial and ongoing considerations of running an enterprise level ecommerce site.
“I could not be more proud of the many teams that have come together to get the site launched,” said Darin Pierce, ARO President and Executive Vice President of AFS. “We have been eager to get our new sites launched and ready for the coming holiday and Winter seasons. I hope all of the teams that have been involved understand how appreciative I am for their many efforts.”
The new site (visit the new site here) is currently linked to the original website; however, within the next several weeks and as the team becomes more familiar and comfortable with the site and Instacart’s operational support, the SFP site will be moved to be the main site for Fresh Market. Thomas Horne, Senior Ecommerce Manager at AFS said, “We are operating in an ecommerce-first competitive environment. To stay as relevant as possible with shoppers that are digital natives or use ecommerce to make their lives a little easier, we have to rethink our approach to site and take more of a commerce-first approach just like our competitors have done.”
“This move is a big deal for ARO,” said Darin Pierce. “With the recent announcement by Amazon – their further push into fresh grocery – we fully understand that we have to make ecommerce a viable part of our shopper offering. For us, given the competitive landscape that ARO plays in and how much our own shoppers are evolving, we knew we had to make a big move and this is why our teams have put such a tremendous effort into building a great initial site for Fresh Market and with the subsequent ones we will be launching in the coming weeks for our other banners.”
One interesting new process that ARO added to their operational disciplines is what is known as a “digital store walk.” “We initially saw and learned about digital store walks from a share group retailer we participate with, Coborn’s,” said Greg Welling, VP of Operations at ARO. “The intent of a digital store walk is no different than walking a normal store. We want to walk through every aspect of the site, from how search is working to how the front page is set up, from how the various primary and secondary menus are set up, to how each department is merchandised to reflect the great work our teams pull off each week in our stores.”
The digital store walk is a concept that all stores that are or will be converting to StoreFront Pro sites should strongly consider. Whether done on a quarterly or semi-annual basis, these walks give the retailer an opportunity to think about how shoppers that come to the site on a regular basis are engaging with them and to ensure that the site reflects the total in-store shopping experience that shoppers are used to.
“Launching these sites is a major accomplishment for both AFS and our independent retailers,” said David Rice, president and CEO of Associated Food Stores. “Thank you to the many teams who worked together to get us to this point, including our participating MRO retailers, ARO, our partners at Instacart, as well as our many internal teams. A special thanks to Thomas Horne and Kellar Sirstins with our Marketing Team. I know the two of them have made many personal sacrifices to help us get to this point and it’s exciting to see results.”
And we much keep in mind that getting these sites launched, while an accomplishment in itself, is only one step toward a much larger path that we are starting on.
AFS StoreFront Pro Quick Links: