When Malcolm Walker returned to Iceland in 2005 he scrapped its online grocery shopping service as he had bigger fish to freeze.
Online service resumed in 2013 and after a slow start, 2016 proved a pivotal year in terms of its approach, development and sales and profit growth.
At the back end it improved analytics, and opened its first pick centre to offer more delivery slots and product variety than ever. It also invested heavily in new people including an online managing director, as well as specialists in trading, production, digital marketing and development.
Crucial to growth has been strong marketing initiatives to drive traffic - sponsoring Iceland (the country) in the Euro 2016, running Black Friday promotions for the first time and giving customers the opportunity to win their basket back at Christmas - helping Iceland attract a large number of new customers.
High customer satisfaction also led to an increase in returning customers. Iceland achieved a 96% customer satisfaction rate, and took home the Which? award for best online supermarket for the second year running.
These efforts have resulted in significant growth and an even more significant boost to profits. Online is now responsible for a growing proportion of sales. And as Iceland says, this is “no small feat” considering the entire business is in growth.
“Iceland delivered impressive growth and gave a confident pitch with excellent detail on sales performance,” said one judge. It demonstrated “fantastic effort, ambition and creativity in how to appeal to customers,” said another.
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