Smart & Final Transforms Online Shopping Portals

Smart & Final, the Commerce, Calif.-based grocery warehouse store for household and business customers, has tapped digital commerce solutions provider Mercatus to power the launch of two customized online shopping portals serving household shoppers and business customers: SmartandFinal.com and Business.SmartandFinal.com.

Smart and Final is reclaiming its e-commerce experience with Mercatus, which will provide the retailer’s shoppers with an end-to-end e-commerce experience along with its network of retail technology partners—including AgilOne, Flipp, GK Software, Infosys, Shipt, Tata Consultancy Services and TForce—to rapidly scale a seamless online ordering and fulfillment experience tailored to meet the online shopping needs of Smart & Final customers. TForce is handling the B2B deliveries.

The selection of Mercatus has enabled Smart & Final—which operates 327 grocery and foodservice stores under its namesake banner, as well as its Smart & Final Extra and Smart Foodservice Warehouse banner stores in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Utah—to now offer an authentic online shopping experience, particularly through the implementation of customer data and insights, for its customers.

Photograph courtesy of Mercatus

The retailer’s new digital offerings harness the Mercatus platform and its network of partners to engage shoppers through multiple touchpoints and provide easy access to weekly digital flyers and coupons, shoppable recipes and meal planning, customized shopping lists, dietary preferences and payment and delivery options—all within the retailer’s branded web and mobile apps. 

“The ability to grow our digital offering while maintaining direct contact with our customers is essential,” Smart & Final’s EVP and chief digital officer, Ed Wong, said in a statement. “As we continuously strive to maintain a lasting relationship with our shoppers, partnering with Mercatus and other platform partners is the logical next step toward enhancing and ultimately owning our e-commerce experience. With the Mercatus platform, we believe that our online experience will serve the evolving needs of our valued customers.”

Shipt is a new delivery partner for Smart & Final and is connected seamlessly via the Mercatus technology for pick and delivery on its own website domains and is also on the Shipt marketplace. While Smart & Final is still on the Instacart marketplace, a Mercatus spokesman told WGB that the marketplaces will eventually be supplanted by the retailer’s branded and wholly controlled dot-coms.

Smart & Final also now offers delivery orders via Mercatus Dispatch—an integrated white label, last-mile delivery solution that seamlessly connects Smart & Final household shoppers and business customers to a host of third-party delivery providers.

Smart & Final will also leverage new platform capabilities from Mercatus, including a bilingual English and Spanish shopping experience, as well as call center operations management and support in both languages.

While explaining how grocers “are at risk of losing their shopper relationships” by surrendering ownership of their digital shopping platforms, Sylvain Perrier, president and CEO of Toronto-based Mercatus, said many retailers “have unknowingly given up control over the one thing they can’t afford to lose—ownership of the digital shopping experience.”

To the contrary, Perrier continued, “Smart & Final has taken the bold step of reclaiming its online presence to serve, nurture and retain its valued shoppers. With assistance from our expansive network of technology partners, we’re excited to work with Smart & Final to offer online shopping in ways that positively affect not only its bottom line but also control over its digital future.”