From:The Daily Nonpareil
(CHRIS MACHIAN/THE WORLD-HERALD)
Omaha, NEB Online Shopping Manager Sandy Berven scans an a bag of
chips for a customer’s online order at the Hy-Vee located at 1000 S 178th St, on Friday, July 17, 2015.
It’s the perpetual question for businesses of all sizes: How do we reach another customer that we might not currently be reaching? (Omaha, NEB Online Shopping Manager Sandy Berven scans an a bag of chips for a customer's online order at the Hy-Vee located at 1000 S 178th St, on Friday, July 17, 2015.)
For a growing number of businesses – now including both Hy-Vee Food Stores in Council Bluffs – one potential answer is found in providing customers with a means to shop online from the convenience of their home or office.
Brandon Williams, Hy-Vee’s group vice president for e-commerce, envisions a busy parent ordering groceries online during a child’s soccer game, or over the lunch hour.
Williams holds a new position for the employee-owned company that began “old school” with one general store in 1930. From that small beginning, the company has grown to encompass 235 stores in eight states generating nearly $9 billion in annual sales.
“We’re just seeing the future and how people are pressed for time,” he said of hy-veeaislesonline.com, the website company officials rolled out here in early July, allowing customers to order online for pickup at either Council Bluffs store or, in the case of the Madison Avenue Hy-Vee location, for home delivery.
Mitch Streit, manager of the Madison Avenue Hy-Vee, said that his store will deliver to any location within Council Bluffs’ 51501 and 51503 zip codes as well as to the Bent Tree subdivision east of the city.
Dorrie Decker, store manager of the West Broadway Hy-Vee location, said that her store currently offers only customer pickup of orders placed online, but home delivery is “a possibility” in the future.
Hy-Vee clearly isn’t trying to make money on the service itself. The fees – $4.95 for home delivery and $2.95 for store pickup – don’t cover the costs, Hy-Vee officials say, particularly in light of the fact that both home delivery and pickup fees are waived on all orders totaling $100 or more. The goal is to retain and gain customers in the face of competition.
Streit said his store began offering pickup and delivery service on July 6 and has added 18 full-time and part-time employees to handle customer demand. Decker said her store began offering the service the following day, on July 7, and has added three new employees.
Although it’s only been advertised with in-store signage and word of mouth so far, Dean Leaders, Aisle Online manager at the Madison Avenue store, said the number of customers has “grown exponentially” in July.
“It’s a service that really appeals to busy families and to our elderly customers,” Leaders said. Streit said he expects the service to continue growing.
Decker said that most of the customers using the pickup service offered by her West Broadway store are moms with small kids.
“They really like the convenience of doing their shopping without having to deal with kids in their basket,” she said.
The customer’s shopping list is transferred to an electronic scanner that details the item’s location in the store, the size selected by the customer, even a picture of the item to be added to the customer’s order. In making their order, customers can specify if store employees can make substitutions for items that might not be available.
Customers can also indicate specific desires – bananas that are green or fairly ripe, steaks with some, or very little, marbling.
Some items, however – fresh fruits and vegetables and meats – require the employee filling the order to make choices.
“When we have to make choices, we fill the orders as if we’re shopping for our own families,” Leaders said – a sentiment and a policy that was echoed by both Decker and Streit.
Both Streit and Decker said employees filling the orders can also turn to managers of the various departments to utilize their expertise.
The pickup and delivery services are not offered on Christmas, the one day of the year that Hy-Vee stores are closed. Decker said stores might also offer limited pickup and delivery hours on Thanksgiving.
– This story contains information from BH Media News Service.
