ROUNDY'S TO ROLL OUT ELECTRONIC MARKETING

DENISE ZIMMERMAN

PEWAUKEE, Wis. -- Roundy's here will roll out to 65 Pick 'n Save stores an innovative kiosk-based electronic marketing system following a pilot program that begins next week.

The kiosks, to be located near the store entrance at the start of the traffic pattern, will generate printed "shopping lists" of discount offers targeted to customers based on their individual purchasing history.

"We feel this is very cutting-edge type marketing and it's going to take the way we market to our customers to a whole new level," said Joe Wood, marketing manager for Roundy's Milwaukee division.

The wholesaler will put the six-foot-high kiosks in two stores next week and begin the widescale rollout in January, he told SN. All 65 stores will feature the kiosks, about three per store, by the end of first-quarter 1995.

To take advantage of the so-called "paperless coupon" discounts, customers must insert their frequent-shopper cards into the kiosk at the start of their shopping visits, he said.

A thermal printout is then issued that welcomes the shopper by his or her name and lists a dozen product items offered at a discount targeted to that individual. The total savings if all the items listed are purchased are printed at the bottom of the list.

To be credited with promotional prices, shoppers present their cards at the checkstand and the discounts are automatically applied to their purchase based on items scanned.

Roundy's compiled a data base of its customers' shopping patterns over a three-year period, when it first introduced its card-based

frequent-shopper program. In Pick 'n Save stores, the frequent-shopper program is called the Pick 'n Save Advantage Plus Savers Club and in Roundy's stores it's known as Roundy's Savers Club.

"The whole [new kiosk] program is really built off the foundation that's been established through the use of our frequent-shopper card -- because that's what built the data base," Wood explained.

The system, marketed under the Share Builder name by Micro Enhancement International, Spokane, Wash., was developed in cooperation with AT&T Global Information Systems, Dayton, Ohio.

Roundy's Pick 'n Save stores will be the second installation of the in-store data base marketing service; earlier this summer, Mega Marts, Oak Creek, Wis., put the units in a dozen of its Milwaukee area stores.

Wood declined to specify how the program is financed but said the potential manufacturer participation played a role in the decision to install the kiosks in 65 stores.

"We knew we couldn't go to market with a fragmented program," he said. "We needed to have all of our Pick 'n Save stores on it in order to market it to the manufacturing community.

"The first thing we had to do was get the majority of stores up on the frequent-shopper program and then [build] our target marketing program -- because the latter doesn't work without the former."