Foodstuffs North Island (FSNI) scooped some of the top awards for application of digital technology at a recent global event in the USA.
FSNI took home the top honour at this year’s Sitecore Experience Awards, receiving the Best Commerce Experience Award, and were just one of six companies to take out an Ultimate Experience Award for creating New Zealand’s most loved online grocery shopping experience.
This omni-channel was highly praised for being compelling and engaging for customers of its New World and PAK’nSAVE brands.
Foodstuffs’ Head of Digital Transformation Paul Bartlett and Stephen Forth (Country Manager of FSNI’s implementation partner, AKQA) accepted the 2019 Sitecore Ultimate Experience Award on stage in front of a room full of international industry experts at this year’s Sitecore Symposium held over three days in Orlando.
The Sitecore Awards recognise brands and teams that build human connections in a digital world using Sitecore technology, across four major categories, these include:
- Best Business Impact or ROI from a Digital Experience
- Best Personalised Customer Experience
- Most Innovative Use of Sitecore as a Digital Experience Platform
- Best Commerce Experience.
Over the past 97 years, Foodstuffs have transformed from a traditional Kiwi grocer to a leading-edge retailer. “Our bricks and mortar businesses are at the heart of the communities we serve, and growing our digital presence is a customer focused decision, driven through valuable customer insights,” said Bartlett.
“Part of staying relevant and valuable to customers is giving them the ability to shop when, where and how they want through a compelling omni-channel experience. We recognised the need to grow our digital presence to meet customers’ changing needs and so we embarked on a digital transformation journey.”
FSNI extended their commerce experience from an App only (New World) to also include a Web commerce site across both New World and PAK’nSAVE. The goal was to deliver a point of difference in the web commerce experience, bringing together web browsing and shopping within the App.
FSNI now reach over one million New Zealanders every month on online sites, and since the commerce launch in December have seen an increase of 170% on online orders. It’s become a vital part in how customers interact with their favourite Foodstuffs brands now and will continue to in the future.
What FSNI achieved with Sitecore is unique to New Zealand. Every store is individually owned and operated, and with their help a catalogue of over 1.8million records and 150 online catalogues have been created for each store, ensuring that customers can see and shop the same local products and range they see at their local supermarket.
As well as being recognised with the Sitecore Ultimate experience award, FSNI and its implementation partner (Adept Group) were also recognised as best B2B Commerce implementation at this year’s Salesforce “Dreamforce” conference for the Gilmours Wholesale site, capping off an outstanding year for FSNI.
Simon Kennedy Chief Digital Officer at Foodstuffs North Island said that both awards are a true testament to the outstanding work that FSNI and its people are achieving in the digital transformation and online retail space.
“As an industry that is changing at an exceptional rate, we are constantly looking at ways to evolve and challenge the status quo," said Kennedy. "We work closely with our business partners and our extremely talented team to look at how we can innovate, automate and accelerate where we would like to be in 2030. Part of that is recruiting new digital experts who are passionate about what they do, to join our growing team.”
“It’s very exciting seeing that the work we are doing here at Foodstuffs and in New Zealand is making a splash Internationally and it’s important we celebrate these successes no matter how big or small."
