Edwards Food Giant and Edwards Cash Saver supermarkets in Arkansas have stepped up online grocery shopping services, including curbside pickup at several locations.
Customers at the 11 stores, whose parent company is Little Rock, Ark.-based GES Inc., can now shop the retailer’s full catalog of products online as well as access a clickable weekly circular and recipes. They also can create, share and save shopping lists that can be accessed at any time online.
The retailer-branded e-commerce websites were developed by Freshop Inc., Rochester, N.Y.
“Freshop was very responsive to our individual needs and has been able to add in custom design elements at our request,” Paul Rowton, vice president at Edwards Food Giant, said in a statement.
Edwards Food Giant also is making click-and-collect grocery shopping, dubbed Edwards Curbside, available at its Bryant, Little Rock (Cantrell Road), Harrisburg and Marianna stores.
Through the program, Edwards customers can order products from their store’s website or from a smartphone after downloading the free Freshop mobile app (available on iOS or Android platforms), searching for Edwards Food Giant and creating an account.
Upon placing their order — which can include anything from center-store items to perishables to household products — shoppers pay directly online and schedule a convenient pickup time. Edwards personal shoppers then collect the items in the order, for which customers can leave notes specifying such details as desired banana ripeness. Shoppers go to their Edwards store to pick up their order in the designated time frame, park in a special Edwards Curbside space and call the number listed. Their order is then brought to their car.
Edwards said it has promoted its new e-commerce sites via new and traditional media, such as by using its Facebook page to spotlight services such as curbside delivery at select locations.
“We used a combination of social media, radio and print advertising to communicate our new online shopping experience,” according to Rowton. “The customers are really excited.”
The supermarket retailer has seven Edwards Food Giant and four Edwards Cash Saver stores in Arkansas. Online grocery platform Freshop runs e-commerce sites at more than 1,000 stores in over 40 states and nine countries.
