Regional Arkansas grocer Edwards Food Giant personalizes weekly ads
An independent grocery chain is staying competitive with larger rivals via targeted shopper engagement.
Edwards Food Giant, part of GES Inc., which operates 15 stores across the Edwards Food Giant and Edwards Cash Saver banners in the Little Rock, Ark. market, is expanding its use of the RSA America unified commerce platform to launch personalized digital weekly ads.
The retailer initially implemented RSA America technology to manage loyalty and digital couponing via its native mobile app, e-commerce and automated targeted offers. Edwards Food Giant’s personalized digital weekly ad is the next stage of that strategy.
Instead of presenting every shopper with the same products in the same order, Edwards Food Giant will be able to use loyalty and purchase data to determine which weekly specials are most relevant to each individual. The opening section of the ad will prioritize the shopper’s preferred store and products aligned with their shopping history, followed by the retailer’s broader weekly promotions.
The retailer will deliver the experience through its existing mobile app and e-commerce channels. Because the data and customer-facing systems are already connected through RSA, Edwards Food Giant can introduce personalization without building a separate integration, managing another provider or handing loyalty data to an outside platform.
“RSA America has already consolidated and optimized our digital channels with great success,” said Gary Proffitt, COO, Edwards Food Giant. “Personalization is now a requirement if we want to serve customers the way they expect. We are continuously thrilled with RSA America as they have given us that capability across targeted offers, our personalized weekly digital ad and our e-commerce experience, all within the same platform.”
A personalized promotion considers the individual shopper, the products they typically purchase, the store they frequent, and the offers most likely to be relevant to them. For Edwards Food Giant, that means two shoppers opening the same app during the same promotional period may see different featured items based on their own purchasing patterns.
[READ MORE: Redner’s Markets unifies loyalty and e-commerce on single platform]
“Independent grocers should not have to start over every time shopper expectations change,” said Ravi Achanta, CEO and co-founder of RSA America. “Edwards has kept building on the same platform, moving from loyalty and ecommerce into automated targeting and now personalized weekly ads. That gives the business more capability without adding another vendor, another integration, or another place for customer data to live. This is a fantastic example of how independent retailers can keep up with national chains without inheriting their technology complexity.”
