The Co-op has launched a new smartphone app which it claims is the future of convenience retailing as it gives its members digital access to offers and services for the first time.
The Co-op App enables its 4.6 million members to download weekly personalised offers, as well as track their member reward balance. Users can choose two offers every week and claim them on top of any in-store promotions.
The app is the latest digital innovation from the Co-op as it adapts to a multichannel future. Already this year, the group has introduced an online convenience delivery service using e-bikes and robots, and a pay in the aisle trial which enables shoppers to purchase goods without going to the checkout.
Ali Jones, Customer Director at the Co-op, said: “Our new app brings the best of Co-op together digitally for the very first time.
“Members will save money on products they buy or might like to try and have the convenience of being able to choose offers before coming into store, tracking their member reward balance and of going paper free, removing the need to hold onto and remember paper coupons.”
However, she stressed that this was just the start with the society planning to develop the app over the next few months, folding in other digital elements such as choosing local causes and accessing recipes.
“Ultimately this isn’t just about an app, it’s a digital front door that offers what modern consumers expect from convenience,” she said.
“That is why we are building a seamless customer experience that draws all the elements of Co-op together in an integrated way, and gets closer to where our customers are – right in the palm of their hand.”
Recent IGD research shows that vast majority of shoppers are interested in using technology in some way to support them with their food and grocery shopping – 77%, and this rises to 88% among Influencer Shoppers. The most popular ways shoppers say they would like technology to help them are to compare prices and to find the best offers.
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NAM Implications:
- The Co-op is famous for introducing new ideas that other retailers capitalise upon…
- Fingers crossed they gain the innovator’s advantage this time…
