Regional grocer launches online shopping across five states

One independent grocer is making a move to compete with larger chains.

Ridley’s Family Markets has deployed an online shopping platform designed to provide personalized experiences for customers across five states in the Mountain West region. By partnering with Digital Foodie, the chain is creating branded websites and mobile applications, as well as taking advantage of the third party’s picking and fulfillment tools to optimize the store pick-up and home delivery processes.



In addition, Ridley's and Digital Foodie will work closely together on marketing initiatives and training programs on the new service to achieve a high level of consumer adoption.



"At Ridley's, we strive to be on the forefront of grocery innovation to serve the broader community," stated Mark Ridley, Director of Operations at Ridley’s, a regional family owned chain of Supermarkets, Ace Hardware Stores, and Pharmacies serving communities in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.



"With the Digital Foodie platform, we stay in control of our on-the-go customers' experience as we add on-demand grocery as another service that makes shopping at Ridley's even more convenient and compelling,” he added. “The Digital Foodie team has made it very easy and fast to map out the evolution to digital grocery.”



The cloud-based platform enables Ridley's customers to create baskets and place orders online or through their mobile devices. Customers can choose the most convenient pickup or delivery time for them, and they are notified when the order is close to being delivered or if the status of the order changes — a process that creates a more transparent delivery process for the consumer.



The service proved its weight in gold when massive snowstorm caused the roof of the Ridley's Weiser, Idaho, grocery store to collapse. Ridley's and Digital Foodie's teams quickly and added the store to the region’s previously planned delivery area, and launched the delivery service two days after the accident.



"When the weather challenged us, we were able to act quickly to minimize the disruption to our customers," says Justin Merrill, director of online sales for Ridley's Family Markets. “In fact, the platform made it straightforward to adapt our strategy to cover the affected area and continue business in Weiser.”