Shopping patterns have changed: cash-strapped customers are trying to make the most of their constrained food budgets by comparison-shopping across multiple retail brands. Forward-thinking grocery retailers are capitalizing on that trend with timely, personalized promotions.

“Search needs to be a utility: it needs to be really fast and provide the best first set of answers.”

Vice President, Digital @ Dawn Food Products Inc.

Grocery ecommerce presents a unique retail proposition. The retail process itself is largely the same, but food is a necessity: not a luxury. Customers’ needs are therefore more urgent.

A substantial segment of grocery inventory has a limited shelf life, and there are multiple service options, from home delivery to buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) to subscription models.

Even with so many moving parts, the online grocery shopping experience must be both easy and fast. To build customer loyalty and longevity, grocery retailers must make the online grocery shopping experience convenient, personalized, and simple. And it all starts with search.

Grocers who implement fast and relevant search see rapid and impressive results. That’s been the experience of these leading international grocers who improved the speed and relevance of their search functions with Algolia, adding personalization features without increasing the burden on their own development teams.

 

Auto Mercado

• Online sales nearly double compared to next competitor
• +50% increase in converstion rate

Auto Mercado, a family-operated supermarket chain, has provided fresh, premium groceries to Costa Ricans for more than 60 years. Headquartered in San Jose, Auto Mercado has 44 store locations, split almost evenly between big box stores and smaller convenience-size locations.

Valued across Costa Rica for their customer service, Auto Mercado strives to continually improve the shopping experience for their customers, both in-store and online. They’ve had an ecommerce site since March 2019, but when the pandemic hit, their online demand increased 1500% almost overnight.

The Challenge

Auto Mercado wanted to provide their customers with multiple options, including standard delivery, express delivery for small orders, or buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS). But their existing technology was difficult to modify and made COVID-19 level scaling impossible. They needed to reinvent their platform while still providing the customer-centric service they were nationally known for.

When their old tech met dramatically increased demand, customers were unable to find what they were looking for. The cumbersome process, including a text box where customers input descriptions of what they wanted — often in a mix of Spanish and English terms — complicated the process for both customers and employees.

To decrease that frustration, Auto Mercado prioritized improving their search capability, which led them to Algolia, proven leaders in search and discovery.

The Solution

Auto Mercado realized their customers searched with common Spanish and English terms rather than with the formal language and categories provided by manufacturers. The company used Algolia’s AI Synonyms and Dynamic Re-ranking to direct shoppers to the products they wanted most using everyday language.

They also implemented Visual Editor and Rules to enhance the store’s promotional campaigns. That made it much easier to assign a keyword search benefiting suppliers by generating a top search result for a specific product. And they could quickly and efficiently modify product description pages (PDP) when needed.

Making search better for their customers also introduced new B2B opportunities. With their new access to discovery, they were able to increase their revenue by offering suppliers a chance to pay for banner ad placements and the top spot in keyword searches.

The Results

Freed from the struggle to locate what they needed, shoppers instead searched for anything they wanted. The increase in revenue more than compensated for Auto Mercado’s initial investment, and they were able to integrate with ease and implement further functionality by themselves.

Algolia’s solutions helped Auto Mercado reduce latency and rapidly increase the relevancy of their on-site search. Instant, accurate, easy-to-use search led to a significant increase in both customer satisfaction and basket size. The benefits continue, even after the return to in-person grocery shopping.

“Algolia makes it easier for us to promote our higher margin private label brands.”

Head of Ecommerce @ Auto Mercado

 

Co-op

• +39% conversion rate
• +6% basket sizes

Broadly known as Co-op, U.K.’s member-owned Co-operative Group offers its members a wide variety of services such as funeral care, insurance, and legal services. But they are possibly best known for selling groceries.

Since 1844, Co-op has strived to treat both their customers and staff with consideration. With more than 65,000 employees working at more than 2,500 local convenience and mid-size grocery stories, they launched their online business in 2019. Then the pandemic drastically altered the world’s retail landscape, and online shoppers arrived in droves.

The Challenge

Like many retailers around the world, Co-Op had to dramatically upscale their online presence when COVID-19 hit. Their existing system was too limited to cope with the massive influx of online shoppers.

Committed to customer service, Co-op wanted to offer their shoppers a relevant, robust search function. They needed to be able to tag and modify products at will, to optimize merchandising and make the entire discovery process simple and manageable for their customers.

Requiring out-of-the-box expertise that would fit their customer-first ethos, they turned to Algolia to help them improve the customer journey.

The Solution

Algolia helped Co-op’s grocery division build drop-down menus for their customers’ convenience. They also drove the creation of search results pages, so shoppers had multiple ways to find what they needed. By implementing Algolia Recommend, Co-op was able to direct customers to other relevant products when their specific items were unavailable. The ease with which relevant suggestions surfaced led 45% of customers to add items to their baskets.

Co-op’s established data structure required a rapidly deployed, light-touch integration, which Algolia was able to provide. Improved search function and live, up-to-the-minute stock availability were up and running within a month.

The Results

Co-op’s focus on excellent personal service and positive employee interactions dictated their main technical requirements for speed, ease of integration, and simplicity of use. But improving search for customers led directly to increased overall sales.

When faced with out-of-stock products, Algolia’s recommendations led customers to new alternatives, leading to a 6% increase in customer spend. The conversion rate also grew 39%.

Co-op’s dedication to both employee and customer care led them to add Dynamic Re-ranking, which reduced employee effort while simultaneously improving the customer search experience. Today the group uses many other Algolia products including AI-based Synonyms, Analytics, Instant Search, and Rules.

“The big advantage of Algolia is that with simple implementation, we’ve been able to get very good results”

Ecommerce Development Manager @ Co-op

 

Dawn Foods

• 2x year-over-year sales, three years in a row
• Exceeded adoption target of 50%

Family-owned Dawn Foods has distributed delicious, top-quality ingredients to bakers for more than 100 years. From small artisanal bakeries to huge global foodservice operators, Dawn Foods helps bakers around the world offer their customers the freshest and most inspiring bakery tastes.

In 2019, Dawn Foods added ecommerce to its global offerings. However, their initial offering didn’t meet the different requirements of all their customers. Since Dawn offers B2B products in multiple formats and jurisdictions, they needed more robust and customizable search.

Dawn Foods’ comprehensive digital strategy to implement MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture on an ambitious timeline also required an expert partner: Algolia.

The Challenge

To future-proof their ecommerce, Dawn Foods wanted the flexibility to adopt and replace back-end tech tools as needed in a way that wouldn’t impact front-end users. Their search had to work for their customers, wherever they lived and for whatever products they needed.

However, their first search solution made it difficult for customers to find what they wanted. Instead of a successful one-click shopping experience, customers had to dig through pages of irrelevant results.

With more than 10,000 SKUs available and individually negotiated pricing, customer frustration grew and cart abandonment mounted. When their customers provided feedback, Dawn Foods listened and utilized a search solution with expansive capacity.

The Solution

The digital transformation team worked with Algolia to implement modular changes to their search. With Algolia’s partnership, Dawn Foods were able to deliver much faster and more relevant results to their customers within six weeks.

To ensure their customers got the right results fast, Dawn Foods implemented Algolia’s out-of-the-box search tool. Without resource-heavy fine-tuning, Dawn’s search function was quickly able to parse user intent, then deliver the best results.

Algolia’s tools helped Dawn Foods reduce irrelevant results and thus decrease customer frustration. Previously, a search for “gluten-free German chocolate cake” would return more than a thousand results. By deploying Algolia’s search API, Custom Rankings, Dynamic Synonyms, and Query suggestions, Dawn Food’s search function now surfaces only the two accurate results.

The Results

Algolia gave Dawn Foods the technological flexibility and freedom they needed to complete their journey to MACH architecture. Today Dawn can continuously integrate and swap out the technology tools that best suit their changing needs without disturbing their customers’ experience of the site.

In less than six months, Dawn Foods was able to present more than 10,000 product items, offer 24/7 customer service, and merge their ecommerce and corporate brand sites. The new combined site now holds all the company’s content – blog posts, company information, purchasable products, recipes, and more. Algolia’s multi-lingual capabilities has granted customers access to all the information they need all in one place.

After implementing Algolia solutions, Dawn’s search usage climbed from less than one million to nearly 20 million in less than two years. Time to order has dropped 30%, latency remains low, and conversion has risen sharply.

“We put all the searchable data into Algolia and it provides the right results, right out of the box.”

Vice President, Digital @ Dawn Food Products Inc.

 

H-E-B México

• +34% search speed
• 270m+ search-as-you-type queries each year

H-E-B México is the Mexican arm of the privately-owned U.S. grocery chain H-E-B. Since the opening of the first store in Mexico in 1997, the chain has grown to almost 90 locations mostly located in northern Mexico. The chain operates two distinct formats: H-E-B, which makes top quality its focus, and Mi Tienda Ahorro, which delivers price-sensitive service.

With such a broad customer base, H-E-B México must also address a wide variety of grocery needs, providing reliably helpful service no matter the format (top-tier or discount), or channel (in-store or online). In 2023, H-E-B México decided to upgrade their ecommerce platform, so they could offer their customers the options of local in-store shopping, online home delivery, or the ability to buy online and pick up in store (BOPIS).

The Challenge

To transform their online presence, H-E-B México needed new architecture and a new ecommerce platform. Their extant search lacked the scale and scope their new vision required; they needed more power, more features, and more speed.

Their top technology needs were real-time indexing, the ability to fine-tune result relevance, and built-in scalability that could handle the depth and breadth of their inventory. H-E-B México chose Algolia to enhance their search capacity, boost their ability to customize search for their customers, and deliver advanced analytics.

The Solution

Prior experience with Algolia’s expertise had prepared the digital team for the powerhouse tools they were about to bring onboard, along with excellent documentation and readily available support. In less than two months, Algolia had been integrated and deployed, radically improving H-E-B México’s search function.

The team introduced a slew of Algolia features. Dynamic Re-Ranking, Personalization, and Visual Merchandising Studio gave them complete freedom and flexibility to create innovative marketing campaigns and promotions. Advanced Analytics helped them measure and assess their click through and conversion rates. AI Synonyms, Federated Search, and Semantic Search let them improve the customer discovery journey by accounting for regional phrasing.

Algolia tools also underlie H-E-B México’s product detail pages (PDP), product listing pages (PLP), and category landing pages (CLP), ensuring every customer’s search process is weighted according to their preferences.

The Results

Implementing Algolia’s tools immediately boosted the accuracy, personalization, and relevance of customers’ search results. Location-based inventory availability lets customers know exactly where and when they can find the freshest produce, helping H-E-B México maintain its well-deserved reputation for product excellence.

Their merchandizing and product teams now have access to department-specific tools that give them full access and control without requiring engineering involvement. That gives the development team back bandwidth to enact broader strategic initiatives. And the leadership team can use granular analytics to make strategic decisions based on up-to-the-minute data.

As the shopping journey became easier and more personalized, customer loyalty began to climb. And with it, sales. Algolia has made H-E-B México future-proof and AI-ready, significantly increasing search speed, allowing for event-driven promotions without developer intervention, and a substantial surge in search-as-you-type queries.

Thanks to that success, H-E-B México will include Algolia in its next major strategic move: in-store kiosks and smart scales for self-checkout.

“When we design experiences with empathy and clarity, everyone wins – not just the business, but the community.”

Head of Digital Commerce @ H-E-B México

 

Conclusion

Getting search right is fundamental to delivering an efficient online grocery shopping experience. But each grocery retailer has unique needs. Auto Mercado and Dawn Foods required built-in translation capacity so their customers can shop in multiple languages. H-E-B México needed to provide the same level of convenience and personalization across two very different brands. Co-op wanted to improve customer service while not adding to employees’ workloads.

Each of these retailers found their solutions with Algolia. Since implementing Algolia, they’ve reaped considerable benefits such as increased traffic, higher click-through and conversion rates, larger basket sizes and enhanced customer loyalty. Large or small, local or national, future-forward grocers can share the same results.

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