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ASDA: Making grocery shopping more convenient with Uber Eats

April 12, 2023 | United Kingdom

For over five decades, ASDA has built up a reputation in the UK for being one of the most affordable and convenient options for meeting a wide array of customer needs. From its early days, ASDA has pioneered popular customer-first initiatives. They were one of the first businesses in the UK to offer discounted goods to consumers, and one of the first to build supermarkets that sold food items along with other everyday products customers need like clothing and home goods.

With a long history of putting the needs and preferences of the consumer first, it’s no surprise that ASDA has brought those same values to the era of online ordering and delivery. The company has been offering delivery, including same-day delivery, for years—getting on top of the trend before the pandemic forced retailers to adopt it en masse. Not content to stop at good enough, they’ve worked in the last couple of years to improve the speed and convenience of the delivery options they provide. Partnering with Uber Eats has played a key role in that strategy.

stores

catalog expansion

increase in online order size

A partnership that pays off

ASDA offers delivery from Uber Eats in over 400 stores. In the couple of years since they’ve started working with Uber Eats, they’ve expanded the catalog of items they offer by a magnitude of ten. And they’ve seen a 50% increase in order size for online orders. According to ASDA, nearly 27 million people live within a 1.8 mile radius of an ASDA store.

ASDA's core principles

Price value

The company has always prioritized offering competitive prices for products customers need. The UK’s recent rise in cost of living has only increased the importance of this principle. To help customers weather an increase in inflation, ASDA launched its new budget range ‘Just Essentials’, ensuring that customer had access to its lowest cost own-brand range of products across all of it’s stores and online.

Loyalty

ASDA’s strategic principles are all about creating a great customer experience, which is the best way to earn customer loyalty. But beyond their commitment to meeting customers’ needs easily and affordably, they also offer a rewards program to inspire further loyalty. And recognizing the difficult financial position many of their customers are in, the program they’re launching rewards loyal customers with pounds rather than points. That’s a practical way to pay customers back for their support.

Convenience

ASDA is on a mission to make grocery shopping more convenient and accessible. Consumers are busy, and the company is aware that many of its customers lack a car. To make essential grocery items (and other nice-to-haves) accessible to this demographic, they’ve launched two main initiatives. The first is opening more small convenience stores in dense urban areas. The second is expanding their delivery options.

That’s where their relationship with Uber Eats comes in.

Improving convenience through flexible delivery options

Any company that cares about meeting (and exceeding) customer expectations has to closely follow any changing trends in what customers want. And of course, there were big changes in consumers’ needs and preferences in 2020.

“When the pandemic hit, it was all about speed, convenience, and online shopping. Our online business doubled within a few months.”

Ross Pellatt, Senior Manager, Last Mile Execution at ASDA

Luckily, ASDA had already been offering delivery for years, including same-day delivery. That put them in a strong position to not only provide the delivery service customers needed, but to step up their delivery offerings to provide even more convenient options. By working with Uber Eats, they were able to start offering quick commerce—meaning that instead of all same-day orders going out several hours after they’re placed, they could get orders to their destination in under an hour.

Now customers can choose from an array of different delivery options that include:

  • Same-day delivery where orders that come in during the morning will be delivered afternoon or early evening of that same day
  • Express delivery that can take anywhere from one to four hours and is handled by ASDA internally
  • Quick commerce orders delivered by Uber Eats that take under an hour, usually 30 to 40 minutes.

These options all contribute to ASDA’s commitment to convenience. But the retailer has found there are also contexts where delivery helps with the affordability principle as well. Many of ASDA’s customers don’t own cars, so getting groceries can involve dealing with the costs of a bus or a taxi. For these consumers, the financial cost of getting fast delivery from ASDA often comes out to less than having to get to the store themselves—and that’s before factoring in time and energy costs.

Two paths to fast delivery

Uber Eats helps ASDA fulfill deliveries that come in from two main channels:

The ASDA website

ASDA offers Express Delivery and Same-day Delivery powered by Uber Direct through the ASDA website. When customers select one of these options, ASDA often uses Uber drivers to fulfill the orders. From the customer’s perspective, their ordering experience is entirely with ASDA itself, meaning the retailer owns the customer experience for these orders.

The Uber Eats marketplace

Customers who already have the Uber Eats app and want the fastest delivery option can find ASDA on the Uber Eats marketplace. This is where the quick commerce option comes into play. Customers place their order through the Uber app, and typically receive their ASDA items within 30-40 minutes. For ASDA, the Uber Eats marketplace can also help them reach new customers who started their search on the app, increasing their overall sales and customer base.

"Now that we offer Uber Eats for 400 plus stores, the amount of people we've been able to reach and offer that experience and convenience to is huge.”

Amy Mount, ASDA Quick Commerce Manager

Uber Marketplace + Direct: the best of both worlds

Using both the Uber Eats marketplace and Uber Direct lets ASDA meet customers where they are to maximize convenience. Those who regularly use the Uber Eats app can get groceries from a trusted retailer within an app they already like using. And those who have a relationship with the ASDA brand can keep their shopping and ordering experience all on the company’s website, while still getting the benefit of Uber Eats’ speedy deliveries.

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