IGA EXPANDING ITS WEB SITE TO LET MEMBERS SHARE DATA

MARC MILLSTEIN

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Independent Grocers Alliance will take another leap forward on the Internet by expanding its World Wide Web site to enable sharing of proprietary information with and between its retail members.

The new section of the web site, requiring password authorization to access, will be used to disseminate, for example, classified and time-sensitive information on manufacturer promotion and pricing programs. IGA officials spoke about the program at a conference here sponsored by SN, which is published by Fairchild Publications, New York. The event was co-sponsored by Deloitte & Touche, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.

The site, which could be up and running as soon as next month, also will provide Chicago-based IGA's diverse membership base with a much sought after opportunity to "chat" with each other about key retailing issues in a secure environment, said Kevin Burkum, IGA's director of communications, and Mike Wallace, manager of management information systems.

Burkum and Wallace spoke about IGA's plans for enhancing business communications via the Internet and the alliance's experiences to date with its consumer-oriented home page at a conference titled "Keeping and Attracting Customers With Interactive Solutions." The event, attended by about 90 retailers, suppliers and vendors, took place Jan. 11 and 12.

"We plan to establish a site for our alliance [members] only. It is going to have proprietary information and will probably go up sometime in February," Wallace said.

A business-oriented portion of the site, Burkum said, will help IGA "act like a chain. A manufacturer, for example, may come to us with a deal but need to know by Friday how many truckloads of product we want. We will soon be able to know that by communicating via E-mail with our retailers."

The site also will be used to provide members with the ability to communicate with each other about retailing issues on an ongoing basis. "Retailers

are constantly telling us that they want to be able to share ideas and strategies. They want to be able to talk about what works or doesn't work in Peoria, Ill., and may also work in Seattle," Burkum said.

To make the most of the Internet's potential for enhancing IGA's business communications, the alliance is embarking on a program to encourage members to gain access to the web, and eventually, establish their own home pages.

"One of our main emphases in 1996 is internal. We are trying to get more [of our] retailers on the web. We don't yet have a firm number on how many of our 2,400 retailers in the United States or 3,600 worldwide are on the web," Burkum said.

"We are going to provide them with how-to manuals, give them free software and do whatever we can to get them on the web. Once they are up there, they are going to realize the benefits of having their own site. Down the road, they will be able to use it to install grocery delivery and all the rest," he added.

IGA has retail members in 49 states in the United States and in 15 other countries, primarily in the Pacific Rim, and it is about to expand into South Africa and parts of South America. "With this kind of demographic there are some obvious challenges that come up. When you consider our size and breadth, obviously there are communication issues that we have to deal with," Burkum said.

Although security is often cited as one impediment to quicker rollout of comprehensive Internet programs, Wallace downplayed the issue.

"I think the security issue is blown out of proportion. It is an exaggerated issue and I don't think it should prevent anybody or any corporation from benefiting from the Internet," Wallace said.

"There are some students who consider it a game to try to crack credit card numbers and so forth, but they are not out there to get company or proprietary information. You don't hear about any incidents like that at all," he said.

Burkum and Wallace also spoke about IGA's Internet program targeting consumers and building the alliance's image, especially among younger shoppers, with its home page.

"Eighty percent of our shoppers today are women, and a lot of them are older. IGA, to be perfectly honest, has an image problem. We want to appeal to a whole new consumer set. How do we do that?" Burkum said.

"Like any marketer, we are always looking for a point of differentiation in the marketplace. Right now there are not a lot of supermarket companies on the World Wide Web. We saw it as an opportunity to be first," he said.

Wallace stressed that just establishing a home page, however, is not enough to lure consumers to it. Companies must also generate excitement within and about the site.

" 'If you build it, they will come?' Not always. I have had quite a few calls in the past few months from people delighted they have a web site up, but [who] found after a few weeks that it was generating very, very few hits. You have to advertise your site," Wallace said.

Companies need to register with search engines, list the site on business cards, advertise it on brochures and even print it on coupons, he said.

"We are giving away $100 IGA gift certificates every month as a raffle to entice people to come back," Burkum said. "They submit their name and entry information, and then on the first of the month they have to come back to our web site to claim the prize. If they don't come back within 24 hours, we give the prize to someone else.

"That has been very successful, and again, it is helping us attract a whole new consumer set," Burkum said. "A lot of college students have been submitting entries to us."