Ed Wong, EVP and Chief Digital Officer, at Smart & Final joins us on the Digital Grocer Podcast at NRF 2020. Ed shares the process of selecting the right grocery eCommerce solution for Smart & Final. He explains the unique challenges of serving both household and business customers and advice for approaching the specific requirements that come with that.

When selecting an eCommerce provider, Ed explains two important requirements that Smart & Final had, “To control how we would want the customer experience to be, and be able to select a partner who’s going to be able to say ‘well, we’ve been there and done that’, versus, let’s say, engaging with one of the more legacy platforms where they would still need to configure and learn how to really adapt into grocery had been some of the initial requirements that we started with.”

Control over brand experience was a major factor for seeking out a new platform. “For us, we had a very specific objective in mind in terms of what we wanted to do. We were operating under the Instacart’s powered by Instacart white-label platform and certainly I think as the evolution of, not just us, but also Instacart and the marketplace, I mean that was deemed appropriate for us to consider how to have a better control over our own brand experience, that we would want to maximize.”

Sylvain and Ed talk about the unique challenges that come offering online shopping experiences for both household and business customers. Is offering B2B eCommerce just reduced functionality, or is there more to the story?

Tune in to the podcast to learn more about how grocery retailers can find the best eCommerce solution for their business.