ICA MAXI in Örebro now has the world’s longest Click & Collect Grocery Locker. The solution is 20 meters long and contains a total of 120 compartments divided into 3 different temperature zones.
Ica Maxi in Örebro launched its e-commerce in 2019 as a step towards future-proofing the store’s operations. They saw good opportunities to attract new customers and also transition existing customers to shop online.
We had strong internal engagement and a belief that our e-commerce could be really good if we dared to invest wholeheartedly in it!
Daniel Bernström, E-commerce Manager at ICA Maxi in Örebro
Daniel says that when they first started the e-commerce operations, all online orders were delivered via the store’s drive-thru or through home deliveries.
We fully focused on the customer experience. We offered customers coffee and topped up windshield washer fluid while they waited for their delivery outside the grocery store. Since we met customers in such a short time, we wanted to create a positive overall experience.
Daniel Bernström, ICA MAXI Örebro
Soon, they realized that this approach took up a lot of staff time. Sometimes staff had to wait for customers. Sometimes all customers arrived at the same time to pick up their orders, causing queues and not the positive customer experience they had initially envisioned.
The main reason we chose to invest in StrongPoint’s Click & Collect Grocery Lockers was the time factor, Daniel explains. The distribution of bags took too much time, and we couldn’t prepare as many orders as we wanted.
Additionally, there were requests from online customers to be able to pick up their orders in a locker instead of having the order delivered to their homes or picked up at the parking lot.
Some customers even chose to shop with competitors instead of us just because they had locker pickup as an option, says Daniel. This came as a surprise. Daniel further explains that they initially thought that it was the personalized service that was the main reason customers shopped online with them. Instead, it turned out to be a misconception that they had created themselves.
After a thorough analysis, the decision was made to invest in StrongPoint’s Click & Collect Grocery Lockers. The first were installed in November 2022.
Almost immediately, we felt that the grocery lockers made a big difference. Without having to look at the statistics, we felt that we were saving a lot of time! We also received very positive feedback from our customers, who found this a much smoother way to pick up their online orders.
Daniel Bernström, ICA MAXI Örebro
Like many other stores, ICA MAXI in Örebro experienced a significant increase in its e-commerce during the pandemic. Daniel explains that the major difference, when comparing the general shopping behavior of customers before and after the Corona pandemic, is that customers today make sure to shop both online and in-store. Where some customers have returned to shopping solely in the store for purely social reasons.
The store sees its online shopping as an extension of its physical store. Whether customers choose to shop for groceries in the physical store or online, the store aims to provide the same kind of experience, service, and pricing.
Today, we have many customers who do one big grocery shopping trip a month, but also come in to supplement with items from the deli and fruit counters.
Daniel Bernström, ICA MAXI Örebro
In connection with the installation of the Click & Collect Grocery Lockers, certain adjustments to workflows and routines were made according to StrongPoint’s recommendations.
The distribution of our online orders is very different from what we initially thought, Daniel explains. Today, the lockers account for 60% of all order deliveries. The drive-thru accounts for 20%, and the home delivery option accounts for 20%.
We have received incredibly positive feedback from our customers about the lockers. They are very satisfied with the service we offer, which includes never charging a picking fee for online orders and also introducing free shipping on online orders over 1000 SEK.
Daniel Bernström, ICA maxi Örebro
Thanks to the store’s initiative and willingness to change, the online business experienced such a significant increase that they quickly realized the need for additional locker units to be complemented. In practice, this meant that just a year after the first locker installation, they chose to invest in twice as many lockers!
After installing the lockers from StrongPoint along with a more efficient workflow, we immediately saw a 20% increase in online orders.
Daniel Bernström, ICA Maxi Örebro
The e-commerce team at the ICA store now consists of 16 people, with some team members starting work at 5:00 AM. The store offers generous pick-up times, where customers can choose to pick up their orders from 07:00-22:00, seven days a week!
The big benefit for our store is that we save about 8 hours a day by offering lockers as a pickup option. The more orders we receive, the more time we save by having our Click & Collect lockers!
Daniel Bernström, E-commerce Manager at ICA MAXI Örebro
Daniel further explains that, thanks to the lockers, they now have the opportunity to prepare all online orders in advance, meaning they no longer need someone in the online team working night shifts. By 5:00 PM, all evening orders are packed and delivered to the lockers, ready for pickup whenever the customer desires.
Now we can prepare all orders in advance, setting out all orders to be picked up in the evening by 5:00 PM. So if a customer comes at 6:00 PM or 10:00 PM, which is the last pick-up time, the bag is already there waiting.
Daneil Bernström, ICA Maxi Örebro
Grocery lockers are the most efficient way to do click and collect, because you can place right next to your store and once the order has been loaded into the locker, no more labour hours are required. Its’ a very practical last mile delivery solution for both you and your customers. Our grocery lockers come with quality as standard, designed in Scandinavia and built to survive even the most extreme weather conditions. We offer both regular parcel lockers and temperature-controlled lockers for groceries, as well as software for customer communication and contactless access.
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