LAS VEGAS – Farmstead, the first online grocer to offer fresh, high-quality groceries, delivered for free, at better prices than local supermarkets, announced today that more and more grocery brands are signing on for its Refill & Save program in order to increase customer retention and gain valuable insights into shopper behavior. Among the new brands participating in Refill & Save are national brands Niman Ranch, Little Secrets, Tillamook Cheese, True Story Foods and local Bay-Area brands Alexandre Farms, St. Benoit Creamery, and Santa Cruz Pasta Factory.
28 percent of Farmstead’s inventory is now eligible for Refill & Save (either by a brand partnership or Farmstead’s choice), which now accounts for 52 percent of the company’s revenue. Participating brands contribute on a per-unit cost, so Farmstead earns every time a customer chooses their Refill & Save item – another way Farmstead is able to keep its prices among the lowest in the Bay Area while driving brand loyalty.
The company made the announcement from Groceryshop 2019, taking place Sept. 16-19 in Las Vegas.
Farmstead’s Refill & Save provides customers with recurring orders with significant discounts on certain staples, including milk, eggs, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and bread – discounts that bring the prices of those items down to below-average cost for the Bay Area. Farmstead automatically queues up customers’ recurring weekly orders – customers can then add or delete any items for the week, or even cancel a weekly order entirely, up to three hours before their delivery window without penalties. The weekly order minimum for Refill & Save orders is just $20.
The service is built on the premise that most households buy many of the same things every time they grocery shop. Providing user-centric digital products to support that behavior helps Farmstead predict demand, reducing its costs and improving efficiency, in turn enabling the company to reduce prices on certain staples while still making the business profitable.
“Customers love the convenience and the savings they get from Farmstead’s Refill & Save offering, and brands love the stickiness and the insights,” said Farmstead co-founder and CEO Pradeep Elankumaran. “The more brands we add, the more value customers get out of it – it’s an important area of focus for Farmstead.”
Elankumaran will also be presenting at Groceryshop, as part of a panel on Effective Personalization Tactics taking place on Sept. 19 from 9.50-10.50am PT. Almost every brand and retailer today is striving to create more personalized online and offline shopping experiences. From better product recommendations to more targeted offers, and from customized product options to personalized in-store experiences, leaders across grocery and CPG are launching new products and services that cater to shoppers’ unique needs. In this interactive session, three brands and retailers (including Farmstead) will discuss their approaches to personalization and which tactics have proven most successful.
Farmstead exploded into the online grocery scene in 2016 and has shaken up the space in a big way. With an initial focus on locally sourced produce, Farmstead worked to make fresh food available to all at reasonable prices. It partnered with national brands such as Kraft to expand inventory, and it developed technology and services for making online grocery buying cheaper than going to the store. 70 percent of Farmstead customers are mid-market customers who might otherwise shop at local supermarkets such as Safeway, Kroger and Trader Joe’s.
About Farmstead
Farmstead is the first online grocer to offer fresh, high-quality groceries, delivered for free, at better prices than local supermarkets. Using AI technology, Farmstead has reinvented the grocery buying experience and rewired how food moves across the country, to significantly reduce food waste and fulfill its mission of making high quality, locally sourced food accessible to everyone. Visit https://www.farmsteadapp.com or follow @farmsteadapp.
