Geofencing holds a great deal of promise for grocery chains to create customer loyalty and in-store engagement, as well as streamline their own operations.

Here are a few ways grocers can put geofencing into practice to achieve high-impact results.

Speed up curbside pickup

Following the pandemic, it’s nearly impossible to find a grocery store that hasn’t established a curbside pickup strategy, but not every curbside experience is created equal. In fact, some grocery chains still require customers to call the store once they enter the parking lot to let staff know they arrived.

Radar’s trip tracking eliminates these extra steps by providing grocery staff with live ETAs and arrival information to manage orders more efficiently. Meanwhile, customers are updated with real-time notifications and pickup instructions once they arrive. Insight into customer trips alleviates congestion, reduces customer wait times, and improves store efficiency.

Improve the in-store shopping experience

Leveraging geofencing to surface on-premise app experiences can transform a mobile device into a helpful shopping assistant, increasing app engagement and revenue.

Through the use of beacons and geofencing, grocery stores can help shoppers find the items they seek more easily. Target uses geofencing—as well as Bluetooth beacons—to help shoppers check off everything on their lists. Their app’s in-store mode (triggered automatically when customers enter the premises) shows customers where they are in the store in real-time. To help them with their shopping, the app’s list feature lets shoppers click on any item on their list, and it guides them to the exact location on the store’s shelves. This personalized experience demonstrates how geofencing can make shoppers' lists come to life.

Send smarter messages

Relevant and timely messaging can be a great tool for boosting in-store app engagement. BJ’s employed geofencing to understand when shoppers are opening their app in-store, which they use to send reminders of in-club features, such as reminders to put in their deli order. Doing so increased deli orders and attributed revenue from the deli.

A regional grocer with just a few dozen locations in the Midwest leveraged geofencig to recognize when loyal shoppers entered the store and made suggestions based on their preferences (as indicated by past purchases). Suggestions can also be made before shoppers enter the store. Upscale grocery chain (and Amazon subsidiary) Whole Foods used geofencing to actively invite customers to visit. The app recognized when customers were in the general area of the store and sent a message encouraging them to come in.

Radar integrates with the leading customer engagement platforms to trigger location-based messages that increase engagement, revenue, and store visits.

Unlock contactless payment

Contactless payment became a highly sought after feature amidst COVID-19 safety concerns. Many grocery chains have scan-to-pay features built out, but they are often hidden deep within an app and see low adoption.

Using Radar to understand when shoppers are opening the app in-store enables grocery chains to make the scan-to-pay feature prominent and convenient when it’s time to checkout. When customers open the BJ’s app in one of their clubs, for example, the Express Pay feature is ungated, enabling shoppers to quickly checkout without physical contact.

Drive loyalty

The main benefit is loyalty. Geofencing not only increases loyalty adoption by surfacing rewards programs at just the right moment in-store, but also powers experiences that foster loyalty, from seamless curbside pickup to relevant in-store offers and recommendations.

Walmart became famous for their greeters – employees whose job it was to simply say hello to customers as they entered their store. This engendered loyalty as it made customers feel appreciated. Though the retailer no longer hires greeters, their app, with geofencing incorporated, is driving the same loyalty with messages to greet customers as they arrive and a constant companion to help them make their shopping experience better.

The final result is a happier, more loyal customer. This technology is not exclusive to Walmart, but is available to every grocery retailer to use in innovative ways to engage customers and create that same loyalty, which is highly valuable in the grocery category.

The grocery wars are continuing to rage on, with retailers finding new ways to delight and retain loyal customers. Tapping into the potential of geofencing will help leaders emerge.

Through Radar’s leading geofencing platform, it has never been easier for grocery chains to enable location-based experiences.

If you’re interested in leveraging geofencing to create customer loyalty and in-store engagement, as well as streamline operations, we’d love to hear from you.