APP STRATEGY AIDS TESCO GROWTH
Tesco has announced its interim results for H1 2017/18, delivering 3.3% sales growth for the Group, with UK like-for-like sales up 2.2%. Part of its improved performance lies with its app. According to analysts, Tesco is ahead of the game in the UK with apps and the work it has done on mobile is likely to see it continue to perform well and bring the fight to other grocery retailers.
Derya Yildiz, Senior Analyst, Kantar Retail, explains: “Speed is the new loyalty in grocery and Tesco is making the right moves to secure a bigger share of shopper wallet. While Sainsbury’s tests a checkout-free payment app and Costcutter trials fingerprint payment, Tesco’s new Tesco Pay+ is a much simpler yet effective move.”
Tesco replaced the PayQwiq app with Tesco Pay+, which combines payment and loyalty in one app for quick shopping. Many grocers have apps, but few combine these two functions. Tesco can easily roll out the new app with a short testing phase, winning the basket here and now.
This Yildiz sees as a winner for the retailer, bringing slicker checkout and mobilising its already powerful loyalty scheme in one simple move.
Tesco Chief Executive Dave Lewis said: “We are continuing to make strong progress. Sales are up, profits are up, cash generation continues to strengthen and net debt levels are less than half what they were when we started our turnaround three years ago. All of this is possible because of the focus we have placed on serving shoppers a little better every day. Our offer is more competitive and more customers are shopping at Tesco.”
CHECKOUT AT SAINSBURY’S
Sainsbury’s is trialling a checkout-less system which enables customers to pay for goods on their mobile phone in the retailer’s Euston store. Customers can use the Sainsbury’s app to scan items with their mobile phone, payment is then taken automatically and they can leave the store without going through a checkout. The move comes as high-end fashion retailer Ted Baker has also adopted a mobile-based, low-friction payment service in its stores.
The use of a mobile app to remove potential friction points in the customer journey, such as the checkout, appears to reflect a growing consumer trend of mobile technology integrated into the shopping experience.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s is also pushing ahead with its trial of same-day, one-hour deliveries within London. Its Chop Chop service, which sees customers ordering up to 25 items via an app, was initially piloted in its Pimlico and Wandsworth stores. It has now been rolled out to five more London boroughs, with more than 70,000 more postcodes added from Barnet to Westminster and beyond. This, says Sainsbury’s, extends the service to more than 1.7m potential customers, giving it the biggest reach of any UK supermarket offering one-hour delivery.
Clodagh Moriarty, Director of Online at Sainsbury’s said: “We’re delighted the trial of our Chop Chop delivery service in Wandsworth and Pimlico has proven to be such a success. Our ambition is to help our customers live well for less and saving them time by offering one-hour delivery is one way we’re doing just that.”
Since its launch in September last year, the service has proved particularly popular with customers looking to purchase weekend brunch ingredients and baby emergency products as well as ‘dinner for tonight’ items and post party celebration remedies.
DEBENHAMS’ PWA SITE LAUNCHES
Debenhams is strengthening its multichannel offering with the launch of a new mobile site based around progressive web app (PWA) technology – giving UK customers the best features of mobile apps with the broad reach of mobile web.
The Progressive Web App, which uses Google-backed technology, is a key development in Debenhams’ digital and multichannel strategy. It creates a smooth and streamlined app-like shopping experience on the web, without needing an app store download. It also means that customers will be able to browse twice as fast as before.
Delivered by SapientRazorfish and Mobify, the new site went live in early October after less than four months of development.
Ross Clemmow, Managing Director Retail, Digital, Food & Events at Debenhams explains: “The new site will transform our customers’ experience of shopping with Debenhams on their mobiles. We now have technology that not only delivers a better, faster experience but allows us to keep pace with shoppers’ expectations whilst on the move.”
The move is part of Debenhams’ ongoing multichannel transformation project ‘Debenhams Redesigned’. The strategy centres on mobile and comes after research back in April by digital performance intelligence company Catchpoint found that the then current Debenhams website was slow and old fashioned and featured way too many items per page. That all now seems to have been addressed – and then some – in the new app.
