Supermarket orders by mobile app — comparing 3 Dutch market leaders — Part 1 of 3
This is the first post in our three-part series comparing the strategies and processes of three Dutch grocery retailers — Albert Heijn, Jumbo, and Picnic — when it comes to online sales via mobile devices. You can also read our deep dive into Albert Heijn’s ‘Bonus’ customer loyalty program here.
In Part 2 we will explore how the ordering process is handled by each of these supermarkets, as well as looking at how they compare on pricing, while in Part 3 we will examine delivery and customer service.
To learn more about how Spaaza can help you customise powerful retail apps visit our website Spaaza.com
The ongoing evolution of online shopping — A Dutch experience
While online grocery shopping is not a new option for Dutch shoppers, 2020 may go down as the year that shopping by mobile device finally went mainstream.
In this post I will take a look at how three of the Netherlands’ major grocery retailers are using phone-based apps to serve and gain an increasing number of customers, and compare mobile experiences between Albert Heijn (AH), Jumbo, and the relative newcomer Picnic, which unlike its competitors is a uniquely app-based retailer.
Also-ran
There are a few retailers I haven’t included in this article, namely the fast-growing supermarket Plus, whose service isn’t available in my area yet, and the online-only ultra-fresh premium supermarket Crisp. This latter is also growing incredibly fast, but I didn’t want to include it here because they are our friendly neighbours, with their HQ just upstairs from our base here at Spaaza, and it would be hard to be impartial. Of the other Dutch supermarkets not mentioned, either their delivery service isn’t available in my area, or they don’t provide a delivery service.
Introduction
Since the early stockpiling days of the pandemic I’ve been grocery shopping online for our family of five, mostly from the comfort of home here in Amsterdam. Though online ordering is available through large-screen devices, I placed every order through the retailers’ dedicated apps on my phone — it’s faster and the payment process is simpler.
My phone runs Android 8.1 Oreo, not the newest OS out there. It doesn’t have a huge screen either, but although some apps are better than others, the experience is still pretty smooth with all three apps.
Of course there is a little bit of self-promotion involved, since some of the loyalty elements used in these apps are features you could include for your own brand if you used our company Spaaza’s incentive marketing platform and its APIs and integrations. But mainly I hope readers will be interested to learn how what is now a super-easy process works with some of the biggest supermarkets in the Netherlands.
Firstly, I’ll introduce the three companies and mention when they got started in mobile ordering. Then, with the help of some screenshots, I’ll show how the ordering process works in each app. We’ll also dive into pricing, reordering, and some of the promotions each supermarket has available, and explore the various ways you can update a chosen delivery time slot, before explaining some of the advantages and disadvantages of the delivery experience. Rather than write one lengthy post on the subject I’ve broken it into three separate posts. You’ll find links to the other two posts at the bottom and top of this page.
Picnic, Albert Heijn and Jumbo — the David and two Goliaths of the Dutch supermarket landscape
Albert Heijn — a branch in every town, village, and neighbourhood
With its national market share of nearly 35%, Albert Heijn — or just AH (pronounced “aah-haa”) to many — is not just the biggest, oldest supermarket chain in the country, and the darling of the Dutch grocery world, it is also a huge company with ultra-efficient processes.
AH’s parent company Ahold Delhaize is based within a stone’s throw of Amsterdam, in the town of Zaandam. It is one of the biggest supermarket owners in the world, employing hundreds of thousands of people, with over 7,000 stores under 23 different brands in 10 countries, including Stop & Shop and Giant Food in the US.
Having started its albert.nl online delivery service in 2001, Albert Heijn had a first-to-market head start advantage.
Despite increasing competition from all quarters, AH’s delivery vans (more on their downsides later) are still a common sight on roads all over the country. AH’s mobile app, informally but nationally known by the nickname “Appie,” was first made available on the iPhone in 2009, with the Android version following shortly afterwards.
Jumbo — warm welcoming colours and good customer service
With a 21% market share in 2019 (Source: Nielsen), Jumbo is second only to Albert Heijn in the Dutch market. Building on its origins and roots in the province of North Brabant, through a series of acquisitions Jumbo has grown rapidly since its founding in 1979.
Jumbo prides itself on customer service, with a cheerfully warm and welcoming yellow colour scheme and an open-plan store layout that makes for a relaxed in-store shopping experience, while still maintaining a price-competitive offering.
With a web-based home delivery service introduced in 2016, and app-based ordering added soon after that, Jumbo was a relatively late entrant to the online market.
Picnic — the app-only supermarket taking grocery deliveries by storm
Since its founding in Amersfoort in 2015, the app-only Picnic has revolutionised the Dutch supermarket industry. Entering the market with bases outside three of the Randstad’s cities — Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Den Haag (the Hague) — placing roughly half of the country’s population within its range, Picnic set out to prove that it could provide a better service than established players and gain traction ‘under the radar’. The company represents a phase-change in grocery shopping. Its small electric delivery vehicles drive fixed routes on predetermined days, using real-time Uber-style map tracking that allows customers to see exactly when their groceries will be delivered.
Helped by hundreds of millions of Euros in investment, in the few short years since its inception Picnic has experienced exponential growth. With a fleet of approximately 1,000 delivery vehicles, by early 2020 Picnic was already delivering in 130 cities and towns, both in the Netherlands and across the border in neighbouring Germany under the name Sprinter Supermarkt. Picnic has recently started its first venture in France under the name TocToc (meaning knock-knock), in the city of Valenciennes, near the Belgian border.
The 3 apps — mobile-only supermarket wins out on simplicity
In this section we’ll take a look at the basic layout of each of the three supermarkets’ apps. More details on actually using these mobile apps is included in the section on ordering, in the next of our three posts.
Albert Heijn — full-featured omnichannel interface compromises on app-based shopping
Because of its need to provide both in-store and online features, and also its use to display the many (often complicated) Albert Heijn promotional mechanics (see our deep-dive article on Albert Heijn’s customer loyalty scheme, Bonus), the AH app is probably the most cluttered. It doesn’t immediately drop you into ‘order online’ mode, and you have to scroll to find the main components.
Navigation is centred around the home screen, on a page that covers your personalised membership of the Bonus program, recipes, and your shopping list. Less-used features are on a separate page, accessed through the ‘more’ (Meer) option.
Placing an order can either start in the search box, or from various other places in the app, a process explored in Part 2 of this series.
Jumbo — less cluttered but still a couple of steps away to start ordering
Like its competitor Albert Heijn, Jumbo has an app that has to serve both its online and in-store shoppers. While its layout attempts to make things less complicated, moving all its promotional elements into a separate Jumbo Extra’s loyalty app creates confusion, since after you’ve received an order it’s hard to remember which app to open to check your points or other promotions.
Unlike AH’s “Appie”, Jumbo’s home screen isn’t based on big colourful icons. Many ‘important’ text links are found further down the page, but it does usefully include suggested grouped lists of products, which facilitates placing an order. As with AH and Picnic, Jumbo’s app makes it easy to search for a product.
Picnic — order-focused layout makes fast work of shopping
While in the case of the long-established AH and Jumbo supermarket chains, where the app came retrospectively as a complement to their physical stores, Picnic developed its app from the ground up, as central to the customer’s shopping experience. The Picnic app is optimised for convenience, allowing you to place an order fast by dropping the user straight into a scrolling screen of product images. Just tap on an image once and the item is in your cart. Along the top of the page are various category filters, such as current promotions, or products for the national ‘King’s Day’ festival, Koningsdag.
If you have an order due to be delivered, there will be a reminder at the bottom of the screen. The four icons are so simple they require no explanatory text.
In short, the Picnic app is optimised for highly efficient ordering. Unlike its competitors, there is almost no loyalty element, and of course no in-store element as there are no physical shops. Picnic’s app is not as colourful as the other two apps, but its stark functionality makes it easier to use.
In Part 2 of this series we will explore how the ordering process is handled by each of these supermarkets, as well as looking at how they compare on pricing, while in Part 3 we will examine delivery and customer service. You can also read our deep dive into Albert Heijn’s ‘Bonus’ customer loyalty program here.
To learn more about how Spaaza can help you customise powerful retail apps visit our website Spaaza.com
