Lowes Foods is an industry leader when it comes to fast, convenient online shopping. Its flagship eCommerce guest engagement service, Lowes Foods To Go, helps guests locate products, scan barcodes, clip and redeem digital coupons, and create pickup and delivery orders.
Despite having a successful system in place, Lowes Foods is always looking to streamline its processes. One opportunity was the technology infrastructure connecting it to its Delivery Service Providers (DSPs).
Lowes Food wanted to improve their customer experience
Before Delivery Solutions, Lowes Foods was hand-managing each and every delivery provider. In order to scale more effectively, they needed a unified system to help…
- Integrate third-party delivery solutions providers
- Orchestrate last-mile delivery for 80+ stores operating throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
- Optimize provider based on a variety of factors, including drop-off day, time, and location
Reducing platform friction for guests
Chad Petersen, SVP of eCommerce at Lowes Foods, also wanted guests to have a more seamless experience.
Lowes Foods wanted all of its service’s functionality to live under one roof—and it had to be user-friendly and on-brand throughout the entire journey.
Chad said, “We wanted to create a more consistent look, feel, and experience, where
guests knew it was Lowes Foods that managed the experience end-to-end.”
No bandwidth for complex implementations
Perhaps most importantly, Lowes Foods needed a turnkey solution. Chad’s team didn’t have the time or resources to weather a long and complex implementation process or revisit integrations every time they added a new provider.
“Every new delivery provider has its own set of APIs, integrations, and moving parts. I
don’t have swaths of developers on hand to build custom integrations between all our
systems and every new partner,” he said.
Lowes Foods needed an inclusive platform from a partner that would do the heavy lifting on coding and integration.
And that’s exactly what Delivery Solutions provided.
“Delivery Solutions brought a unique set of capabilities and handled all the heavy-lifting of the actual integration.”
Lowes improved UX, branding and strategy with Delivery Solutions
Hassle-free implementation
Delivery Solutions is helping Lowes Foods scale up its last-mile delivery with a focus on quality and consistency.
Implementation went smoothly. Delivery Solutions completed a fast integration with legacy systems and made the necessary handoffs so other systems could talk to Delivery Solutions’ omnichannel platform.
The unified platform equips Lowes Foods with centralized, robust Delivery Service Provider options that service each area.
Being able to quickly and easily bring in new DSPs was an immediate win for Lowes Foods.
Chad explained, “It’s easy to onboard a new 3PL now, which massively reduces the cost and effort involved in integration. Delivery Solutions handles the heavy lift with providers, so we can focus on the services we provide."
Orchestration rules to improve guest UX
Through our unified patform, Lowes Foods can set up orchestration rules that automatically optimize preferred delivery providers for each store and region. Special weight is given to the projected delivery date and time, to ensure guests get their orders as quickly and efficiently as possible.
With all delivery providers now managed from inside a centralized hub, Lowes Foods reduces operational time and costs—and orchestrates deliveries more seamlessly.
Chad said, “If we make a decision to switch providers in a certain region, Delivery
Solutions’ toolset makes it easy. We lightly reconfigure the dashboard and we’re
switched over.”
White labeling for consistent branding
The Delivery Solutions platform also provides them with a white-labeled (Lowes Foods branded), hosted, real-time tracking page for guests, which Lowes Foods can send via email or SMS. This enables guests to track deliveries and engage their DSP in one seamless loop—no platform-hopping required.
Chad said, “Guests receive automatic notifications of who their driver is, what vehicle
they’re driving, what time it will arrive, plus a map to track its exact location, all with
Lowes Foods branding. It’s been a great addition to remove a key friction point for our guests as we continue to grow delivery.”
During implementation, Delivery Solutions’ team members even visited multiple stores to ensure that the resulting digital delivery experience perfectly matched the brand.
Strategic insights fuel future optimizations
Delivery Solutions platform also includes built-in analytics, which help Lowes Foods drive further operational efficiencies. This adds extra scope to the other performance insights that Lowes Foods was already collecting, and enables teams to glue DSP performance to volume and revenue.
Chad said, “Our operations team and technology team are increasingly digging into
our KPIs and leveraging Delivery Solutions’ data tools to succeed.”
Thus far, Lowes Foods has used analytics on delivery locations and distances to
benchmark DSP performance, identify trends, and make ongoing improvements.
“Delivery Solutions creates a turnkey infrastructure, making it easy to switch between providers, which is a critical enablement mechanism for our business.”
Scaling order fulfillment and building loyalty
Now that Lowes Foods has streamlined last-mile delivery, orders are fulfilled faster and guests enjoy a more consistent experience. Ultimately, commitment to quality and service is what sets Lowes Foods apart in a competitive market.
As Chad said, “Building loyalty in this way is a critical aspect of revenue generation.
If you can deliver orders on time, consistently, per expectations, and with quality, that
builds trust, which all leads back to revenue.”
Saving time to focus on running the business
Another benefit comes in the form of time savings. Lowes Foods’ hosts used to hand-manage every DSP. If a driver was delayed, it was up to staff to resolve the issue.
Now, with better infrastructure in place, service recovery is automatic. The system “self-heals,” so if a driver accepts an order but has to cancel or something slows them down, the OXM ensures continuity of that order and finds the next available driver automatically.
Chad said, “Delivery Solutions makes last-mile delivery almost painless. It’s alleviated a lot of spinning wheels, so we can focus on running, learning, and testing with the business.”
Unlocking future growth opportunities
Today, Lowes Foods is able to better control its brand experience, fulfill orders faster and more efficiently, and differentiate itself in a competitive market.
Delivery Solutions’ OXM is an important part of this process. Chad describes it as “an infrastructure to help glue together all of our 3PLs delivering products in different markets.”
He also calls it an “enablement mechanism for incremental revenue” because he can “easily go intonew markets and enable delivery services.”
The Delivery Solutions team is heavily invested in Lowes Foods’ success. We continue to work behind the scenes to improve the product and its capabilities and support Lowes Foods in all current and future endeavors.
“We have a great team at Delivery Solutions. They’re focused on our business and deliver on their promises. That’s the ticket to success for Lowes Foods.”
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Topics from this blog: Case Studies