Stora Coop Varberg – the winner of digitized store 2018 award

Customers like Stora Coop in Varberg. Since 2014, the store has received the highest customer satisfaction score of all Coop stores every year. “This is not about prices, we are not the cheapest. Instead, it’s about something more important. We have friendly staff who are very helpful, responsive and solve the customers’ problems. We often get feedback that we are happy and welcoming. In addition, we have high footfall from both Systembolag and Apotek next door,” says Christer Kallies, Event & Market Manager at Stora Coop in Varberg.

Ambition to be at the forefront

The store opened in 2010, then as Coop Forum, but last autumn it was re-profiled with new furnishings, among other things. Stora Coop in Varberg now places itself at the front in terms of technical solutions.

“I haven’t been technically trained but have worked in stores for 30 years now and have been involved with computers and advertising right from the start. Since 2014 I have been responsible for the market and have always learned, been curious and dared to test myself. This is something that fits in with the store as a whole,” says Christer Kallies.

Stora Coop’s in Varberg ambition is to be at the forefront and it would like to be the first when testing new technology. “We love to be the first with everything. The CEO and Store Manager of Stora Coop Varberg run innovations in an active way and often come up with ideas for the development of the store from the top. Then they come to me and check if and how it can be implemented. We are constantly looking to the future and reaching new customer groups. t’s worth to invest a little extra. It’s about venturing, standing out and challenging,” says Christer Kallies. “Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don’t. But this is something that creates self-confidence. This makes it a fun shop to work in and it is very different from the shop I worked in earlier. It also influences our results, we sell well and that means that we also succeed in doing something out of the ordinary.”

Digitized store 2018

It is therefore no coincidence that the store won the “Digitized Store of the Year” award during the Daily Growth Journal awards 2018.

The most important reason for winning the award is our map function, which we are the first to offer among all Coop stores and perhaps also even in the country.

The map function works with Pricer’s electronic shelf labels, which have a number of other functions that make the work in the store more efficient and provide better service to the customers.

“We have had Pricer in the store since the start in 2010. But when the ESL’s started get old and it was time to change, we began to investigate a new functionality, including a map function.”

Find items directly with your phone

The new Pricer system is thus sought after, not only by the customers but also by the employees in the store. The store is now digitized to a much greater extent.

“It will be a great time saving and now with the solution in place we have noticed that the customers also like the idea. When they enter the store, they scan a QR code with their own mobile phone and the store map appears. They do not need to install any app, it just works. It has been especially fun to see how many elderly people use their phones when shopping, you might not believe it, but they are curious,” says Christer Kallies.

The store will also be a pilot store for a new function called Pick-By-Light, created by StrongPoint Cub and adapted for Pricer, which facilitates e-commerce item picking. While the staff picks items from a pick list, the Pricer labels will flash helping them to find the right item.

“We estimate that this will save 10-15 seconds per item. Goods such as baby food or hair color are not always easy to find, but now the staff will see a flash on the shelf edge so that they can easily take the right item.”

Saves time and protects the environment

Christer Kallies thinks Pricer overall is incredibly effective. In the store, they can change prices very quickly and compared with the paper labels, the store saves lots of time, the environment and the cost of paper.

“Now we can also see stock balance on the labels and we have started with digital date control. In the morning, when we get a list of products that we want to remove, Pricer labels will flash to indicate where we should pick. This of course helps to save time. Every second is important. No one really thinks that it is especially fun to run and look for goods on the shelves.”

Christer Kallies says that the new Pricer solution was very easy to implement. It obviously made it easier for the store to have previous experience and knowledge since the first implementation in 2010. “It was much easier to make the change, we knew how it worked. But it was easy only because StrongPoint helped us with the change,” he says.