A Paradigm Shift in Fresh Produce Delivery
For over two decades, FreshDirect has been a trailblazer in the realm of fresh food delivery, catering to New York and the tri-state area. This rapid growth, while commendable, has not been without its challenges. These hurdles encompass a wide array of areas, including stiffer competition, evolving technology, fluctuating consumer tastes, and establishing profitable business partnerships. Moreover, the ever-growing accumulation of information and data raised a critical question: how could this vast pool of data be utilized for the company’s benefit, the welfare of its end customers, and the profit of its business partners?
Embracing the E-commerce Revolution with NIQ Activate
In the ever-evolving e-commerce landscape, FreshDirect realized the paramount importance of keeping pace with rapid changes. Since its inception two decades ago, the company’s focus has been to satisfy the demands of both their loyal and potential customers. NIQ Activate emerged as a collaborative, intelligent platform, enabling daily, refreshable, actionable insights for both FreshDirect and its suppliers. Those insights empowered them to identify potential areas of improvement in customer satisfaction while identifying new opportunities for growth.
Harnessing Data for Business Enhancement
NIQ Activate plays a pivotal role in powering FreshDirect’s insight hub and brand collaboration platform. It presents intelligent insights that form the backbone of the business. FreshDirect’s collaboration with NIQ Activate has opened avenues for extracting valuable, actionable data. They have been able to create refreshable reports that fuel instantaneous, informed decisions.
Charlotte adds, “With the NIQ Activate platform, we’ve been able to harness hundreds of data points into easy actionable reports for our category managers to help them drive their business more effectively… Having daily refreshable actionable insights powered by the NIQ Activate platform has helped us identify those areas where we can serve our customers better…”
Optimizing Promotional Activities: A Key Success
The NIQ Activate platform has proved to be a resounding success, garnering over 50 internal users and dozens of suppliers to date. FreshDirect capitalizes on these insights to brainstorm with their brand partners. They discuss category performance, promotion and assortment strategies, and devise effective marketing programs with an overarching goal of offering the best possible offers to their customers.
One of the significant successes of FreshDirect’s collaboration with NIQ Activate is understanding the promotional thresholds that attract customers. These insights has been instrumental in optimizing promotional activities. The company has been able to offer value to the customers while ensuring their own profitability. Interestingly, suppliers who actively engage with the data are seen to outperform their competitors by 8%.
Transforming Business Operations through the Insights Hub
Charlotte elaborates on the impact of the insights hub: “Category merchants are enamored with the insights hub. NIQ Activate has helped them operate smarter and more strategically. They have been able to manage their business more efficiently.”
Spotlight on the Meal Kit Category
The NIQ Activate platform’s role was instrumental in optimizing the meal kit category at FreshDirect as well. After its relaunch, data showed that about 40% of this category’s customers were new, and the repeat rates grew week after week, showcasing the platform’s effectiveness.
“We were able to use the gain loss and switching report as well as the event analyzer report to show a brand partner that not only were they gaining share within the category, but that they were really gaining share because of some key programs that they had done around the Super Bowl… So by showing them the impact on the consumer behavior of their campaign, we were actually able to work with them to 3 X the investment that they’re making with us in activation dollars for the following year…“ Charlotte states
Supplier Collaboration: A Win-Win-Win Situation
On the supplier collaboration side, NIQ Activate has proven to be a game-changer. It allows suppliers to optimize their funding more effectively on the site, creating a win-win-win situation for the company, the suppliers, and their customers.
“We’ve gotten great feedback from our suppliers, that using the NIQ Activate platform has helped them make better, more strategic recommendations and has really helped facilitate more effective joint business planning”.
The Last Word
“Having access to daily refreshable insights helps us act quicker and strategically, enabling us to drive the business quickly and effectively while helping us plan a long-term strategy for our customer base,” concludes Charlotte. The NIQ Activate platform’s flexibility and adaptability to FreshDirect’s unique business needs are undeniable.
In conclusion, partnering with NIQ Activate has enabled FreshDirect to leverage their vast data across a wide range of business users. This strategic step has been of immense value to their team and has facilitated better decision-making, Charlotte concludes “I would definitely recommend the NIQ Activate platform”
