IGA Program Delivers Websites, Apps to Members

MICHAEL GARRY

CHICAGO — IGA here has launched a digital marketing program, IGALink, that provides all of its more than 900 U.S. retailers with an interactive website and a mobile app as part of their membership dues.

Prior to the start of the IGALink launch in early June, only about 20% of IGA stores had a store website. When the rollout was completed on July 13, some of those stores had converted to the IGALink-provided site, while all of the previously site-less stores adopted the IGA site, giving every IGA retailer a website for the first time. Prior to the launch, no IGA retailer offered a mobile app; now all IGALink retailers do.

The program is designed to allow small retailers to host dynamic websites.

IGA selected Webstop, a Palm Harbor, Fla.-based website developer, to be its partner in this initiative. Webstop supports non-IGA chain retailers such as Tops Friendly Markets, Williamsville, N.Y., and Price Chopper Supermarkets, Schenectady, N.Y.

With IGALink, IGA retailers, many running just one or two stores, can offer the kind of interactive capabilities found at large retailer websites. “I've looked at larger stores' websites and I don't see any bells and whistles that [IGALink] doesn't have,” said John Lamkin, vice president of merchandising for Kirby Foods, Champagne, Ill., which operates 14 IGA stores. “So it puts us on an even playing field.” He also views the website as a “gateway” to younger shoppers who tend to eschew newspapers but “seem comfortable with smartphones.”

The IGALink sites follow a standard template, which is hosted by Webstop. But each retailer can also customize its site to serve its local community by using five rolling home-page “glider” images or by creating additional pages. Other features embedded in the program include online registration tools for building a shopper database; website analytics; email newsletter capability; an interactive customer shopping list; more than 6,000 searchable recipes that link to the shopping list; and a fully digital version of their weekly circular, which links to the shopping list and recipes. The mobile app, suitable for the iPhone, Android phones and many BlackBerry models, has similar content and features.

Future website features will include social media, coupons and loyalty marketing, noted Jim Walz, vice president of marketing, branding and business development for IGA USA.

IGA membership dues cover the basic cost of the website and mobile app, but retailers pay a monthly fee for having their weekly circular converted to digital form, as well as a fee for email transmissions to consumers. The circular-conversion fee drops in proportion to the number of stores that share the same ad, within the same retailer or across multiple retailers. IGA declined to disclose specific fees.

Lamkin describes the IGALink website ads as “more Internet-friendly” than the PDF ads he ran on his previous website, which was changed to the IGALink platform at the end of June. He also considers the mobile app “one of the big selling points” and expects more innovations in the future.

Another IGA retailer, Laura Malisani, owner of three-store Gary and Leo's Fresh Foods, Havre, Mont., said IGALink “gives us a professional website without having to put in the hours and without having an IT staff.” Other IGA retailers employing IGALink include Dill's Food City IGA, Foods Etc. IGA and Cox IGA Supermarkets.

Walz could not say whether all IGA retailers would eventually adopt the IGALink website platform. “It's the nature of the alliance that each independent will do what they think is best for their stores.” On the other hand, he added, “the more IGA retailers that are on the same digital platform, the more impactful and powerful they will be. There are efficiencies and advantages for them as a group to have a bigger footprint.” He added that he would be surprised if over time more than 5% of IGA retailers chose a different website solution.