Giant Food Stores is transferring its omnichannel push into high gear with the debut of its first Giant Direct Powered through Peapod e-trade hub in Lancaster, Pa., in line with Giant President Nick Bertram. It indicators that we’re doubling down on e-trade,” Bertram (pictured) told Supermarket News Tuesday at a grand commencing occasion for the 38,000-square-foot facility. “It’s a channel that grew certainly fast for us in 2018. We clearly ran out of the ability to develop. So this answers that query.
However, it opens up new ZIP codes that we couldn’t a carrier. And it will take pressure off a number of the other facilities. So as we maximize our network for shipping, this is a clearly critical answer. Built on a closed Giant grocery store site, the Giant Direct hub at 235 North Reservoir St. In Lancaster serves as a curbside pickup site and grocery delivery center. Customers order groceries thru the store’s Peapod online service and app or the Giant website.
Parking spaces labeled “Pick Up Here” let online customers drive up and bring their orders to their vehicles. The facility additionally houses a stroll-up vestibule with tablets and sparkling lockers for putting and choosing up online grocery orders. Items are pulled from rows of bar-coded cabinets and refrigerated and frozen instances inside the hub’s warehouse.
Bertram said plans call for Giant Direct Powered by using the Peapod banner to replace the current Peapod by Giant branding. Besides the brand new Lancaster facility, the Carlisle, Pa.-based totally chain has e-trade hubs in Camp Hill, Coopersburg, North Coventry, and Willow Grove, Pa.
“We have five altogether. I assume there’s nonetheless want, so we’re continuously seeking methods to extend our carrier even similarly. And to be a part of the paintings we do that year,” he said. “We’re also launching click on-and-collect in a lot of our shops this 12 months as well, to be every other part of the e-commerce offering and what we committed to do a closing year.”
The Peapod online grocery carrier and its Peapod Digital Labs e-commerce arm are a part of Ahold Delhaize USA, Giant’s parent agency. In the future, across Ahold Delhaize USA’s chains, e-commerce offerings will carry the retail banners plus the “powered via Peapod” moniker.
“With Peapod Digital Labs, we’ve got modern-day networking software and mapping. They can inform us exactly wherein we want to have more capability, and then we work together to build centers to do that or to trade the transportation schedules,” Bertram explained.
“Peapod plays a massive component, as it genuinely is the spine and the know-how,” he introduced. “But Giant Direct turns into our e-trade emblem as we undergo the yr. We will steadily introduce it because it takes time to roll out all of these adjustments that we’re making.
Heirloom Markets
One of these modifications came an ultimate week, while Giant announced plans to open three greater Giant Heirloom Markets, its new city format, in Philadelphia. The first area, a 9,500-rectangular-foot keep, opened on Jan. 25 inside the Graduate Hospital segment of downtown Philadelphia. Next up these 12 months are Heirloom Markets in the metropolis’s University City, Northern Liberties, and Queen Village districts.
