Grocery Delivery Services Use Loyalty Programs To Retain Customers

With competition from larger players like AmazonFresh, grocery delivery services face a dilemma: How do they differentiate themselves from the pack? And, more importantly, how do they retain customers?

Inabuggy came up with a unique loyalty solution. The company offers cash back to its delivery customers on all orders — it doesn’t matter which grocer a customer chooses. To further encourage loyalty, Inabuggy offers an additional percentage of cash back once a customer places at least 10 orders.

The cash back program also simplifies the process for consumers. Inabuggy Founder and CEO Julian Gleizer told PYMNTS.com, “When they come to Inabuggy and want to purchase items from [their local grocer] … they can do that without having 20 loyalty cards.”

To further serve customers, Inabuggy allows for custom orders and special requests. Consumers may want to order bananas, for example, but may desire a few that are ready-to-eat and a few that will become ripe in a few days. These requests go to dedicated Inabuggy personal shoppers, who can visit more than one store for an additional fee. Either way, the shoppers make deliveries through Inabuggy-branded vehicles, which are designed to keep each food item hot and cold as needed. By keeping last-mile logistics in-house, Gleizer said Inabuggy has better control over the service.

Gleizer also seeks to provide in-store pricing to consumers, but Inabuggy charges a fee for each delivery, plus an incremental fee for each additional store a personal shopper visits for a customer.

Tools For Grocers And CPG Brands

Beyond providing convenience and choice to consumers, Inabuggy can provide grocers with insights and analytics to show what customers are purchasing and when. As a result, they can become more engaged and learn more about their customers. With this information, grocers can offer the right product lineup and determine which products to stock. Gleizer said that grocers can also maintain better stocking levels and sell more of the goods customers are seeking to buy.

In addition, Inabuggy provides grocers with the ability to offer a click-and-collect program. With this feature, customers can elect to pick up their items at a grocer’s brick-and-mortar location instead of having the items delivered to their home. However, Gleizer is finding that customers overwhelmingly choose to not make the trek to the store.

“It’s all about the convenience,” Gleizer said. “The majority of the consumers are going for the delivery option.”

Inabuggy seeks to work with CPG companies to help them better market their brands and products to consumers. The platform offers digital coupons to induce consumers to make purchases. Inabuggy also has algorithms that allow CPG brands to have their products show up first in product search results. Beyond these types of promotions, the company allows CPG brands to bring a common in-store marketing technique into the digital age, such as offering product samples through Inabuggy.

The Road Ahead

In the future, Gleizer seeks to expand the breadth and reach of the service. He wants to grow the company and increase its product offerings by rolling out delivery for other verticals, such as pet products, prepared meals and even meal kits. He said the advantage for meal kits, in particular, is consumers can arrange to have them delivered same day — as opposed to waiting, say, a week for a meal kit delivery to arrive.

The news comes as meal kits are entering the grocery aisle. Blue Apron, for example, recently announced it started selling meal kits at Costco. Walmart, too, has begun selling meal kits and “one-step meals” in more than 250 of its brick-and-mortar stores. Weight Watchers also plans to roll out meal kits in grocery stores. The company will sell them under the “WW Healthy Kitchen” brand name.

Beyond expanding its types of delivery items, Inabuggy is looking to expand its geographical reach. The service is currently live in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, but Gleizer plans to soon launch in Montreal and Winnipeg. In all, Gleizer wants to scale his business all across Canada, “which we plan to blanket and cover by the end of this year.”