GrocerKey, a white-label eCommerce platform enabling brick-and-mortar retailers to build profitable businesses online, was selected by Stew Leonard’s, the fresh food retailer with stores in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, to launch a branded eCommerce platform customized to the unique requirements of its catering business and customers. With GrocerKey, Stew Leonard’s gained full control of the door-to-store catering customer journey, offering responsive and personalized ordering experiences to better meet customer needs, and comprehensive order management and analytics to drive customer satisfaction and sustainable growth.
Stew Leonard’s chose GrocerKey as its sole eCommerce solution provider to deliver a seamless extension of its in-store catering offering – from order placement through checkout and preferred pickup method. GrocerKey developed specialized functionality required for catering meal solutions such as enabling customers to select side dishes, whether they wanted items hot or cold upon pick-up, and accommodating off-menu requests.
“Catering is a complex eCommerce offering, especially when delivering hot and cold meal items,” said Jeremy Neren, CEO and co-founder, GrocerKey. “With Stew Leonard’s, we collaborated to develop an eCommerce platform that guides customers seamlessly through ordering to pick up and provides an optimal online experience that keeps the retailer top-of-mind for their catering needs.”
To support Stew Leonard’s high standard of customer service, GrocerKey augmented its order management and fulfillment system with a mobile app to push SMS notifications with order and customer updates for the culinary and catering staff, as well as for the store greeters to personalize each customer’s order pick-up experience.
The new platform behind StewLeonardsCatering.com enables a more efficient and effective eCommerce catering business through:
- Comprehensive order and customer management system with integrated analytics and reporting to track performance against KPIs and optimize operations. Data-driven insights enable on-going optimization of the customer experience.
- Digital merchandising of the wide-ranging meal solutions to highlight special events and promotions.
- Improved customer experience including expanded online assortment, responsive menu options, and faster checkout. Expanded fulfillment windows enable customers to order up to six months in advance and edit orders up to 24 hours before pick up.
Plans include offering local delivery for online catering orders and implementing smart kitchen technology to drive more efficient catering operations. GrocerKey is currently working to launch an online gifting platform for Stew Leonard’s, with similar capabilities as the catering platform.
“GrocerKey customized our new catering site, from the ground up,” said Stew Leonard Jr., President and CEO, Stew Leonard’s. “More importantly, they helped to translate our legendary in-store customer service onto an eCommerce platform.”
