PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Jes (00:00): Launching an E-commerce platform is no easy feat when you’re a small shop, let alone a large grocery retailer. Today, we are going to take you on a deep dive into Giant Food’s relaunch of their online shopping platform with Gregg Dorazio. Gregg is the E-commerce lead for Giant Food, a part of Ahold Delhaize and the leading grocery retailer in the greater Washington, D.C. and Baltimore region. In this role, he’s responsible for developing Giant’s omnichannel strategy and orchestrating cross-functional execution to grow the online delivery and pickup businesses. Giant’s E-commerce footprint fulfills more than one million orders annually, and includes Giant Delivers home delivery, Giant pickup same-day curbside service, and Instacart rush delivery.

Prior to this role, he spent 14 years as a brand marketing leader with Ahold Delhaize and General Mills. His work spanned advertising campaigns, multicultural marketing and sponsorships, brand licensing, customer development, and shopper marketing. Gregg started his career at Honeywell Aerospace as a Six Sigma Black Belt and manufacturing engineer. He holds a bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from Indiana University. Gregg and his wife, Allie, and daughter, Naya, reside in Annapolis, Maryland. And we couldn’t be happier to have you on the show. Welcome, Gregg.

Welcome to the Fork and Lens podcast, brought to you by Viscul. Mmm, smells delish.

So, about a year and a half ago, you made the transition from marketing to ECOM with a task of relaunching the platform under a new name, service model, and so much more. Thank you so much for joining us today, Gregg. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Gregg Dorazio (01:54): Me as well, Jess. Thanks for the invite. Been a huge fan of Viscul and Fork and Lens on Instagram and other places. So thank you so much for having me.

Jes (02:03): Well, thank you. And actually, as a total side note, the Fork and Lens account, when we started with just food photography, that was actually a challenge to Randall and I, that Greg gave us several years ago. I feel like you deserve some of the credit for the Fork and Lens name and the Instagram account that then has spurred into this podcast.

Gregg Dorazio (02:27): Well, I deserve no more credit than the, probably one minute in which we dwelled on that, but you guys have done all the work to bring it to life.

Jes (02:37): Well, sometimes it just takes that little push. All right, so I want to talk about how you went about creating and launching, redesigning an E-commerce platform for Giant Food. Where did you start in all of this?

Gregg Dorazio (02:55): We started from a point of success, I would say. Peapod had been in the market in the D.C. area and beyond for over 20 years. And so we had inherited a business that was already in good shape and had a lot of loyal customers. It was already delivering thousands of orders a week. And so it was more about improvements and optimization, and really bringing that platform into the Giant family, into the Giant brand, than it was trying to invent something from scratch. So the beauty of it was we were able to take and learn from all the years of experience that the other team had had building this up and then really starting to localize it. And by localizing, I mean merging it with the 83 years of Giant Food history and all those great attributes that people had of Giant as a store and Giant as a brand and a service.

So that was where we started was by defining what does that customer value proposition that we want to anchor on for the foreseeable future in E-commerce. And so it was this blend of what people knew online through Peapod and then with what they knew in the stores and our service model with Giant Food too. So it was a nice blend of the two, and it really started to have us think about all then the elements of the service from the trucks, to the emails, to the site itself, right down to the bags of labels and everything that’s in the products. So it was a real top to bottom look of what is our assortment, what is our fee structure, what is the pricing and promotional strategy, what is our operations plan because it wasn’t just delivery. It was also same-day pickup in our stores. So it was training thousands of new associates to fulfill in a completely different way, bringing items and groceries out to people’s cars. So there is a huge lift just to our business to be able to launch a new E-commerce platform.

Jes (05:04): For sure. And I think that it’s very hard when you’re thrown into something to consider all of the touchpoints that a customer goes through, even in a digital platform. And you spoke to a lot of them there in terms of it was everything from how do they interact with the store to what is the assortment, and how’s the experience online and all those different things. So did you just take each one of those and do a deep dive into them almost one at a time and say, “Okay, what does this look like? What does this look like? And how do we make it this overall customer journey to make it so that they’re not on this roller coaster ride, but rather a smooth and cohesive process?”

Gregg Dorazio (05:48): Smooth and cohesive would have been nice, but it was very… It was much I’d say a little bit more triage than that. And it definitely started with setting a new direction for it, and we wanted to reintroduce this brand. So I think like I said that is really where it started off was taking Peapod and saying, “What is this future of E-commerce, as done by Giant?” And when Giant Food brought it to market, we said we’d have to be a service that has more to it than just the Peapod aspect of it. And that started with really saying, let’s get the branding and the messaging, and then try to have almost a single timeframe when that is reintroduced and relaunched to all the customers. And it wasn’t necessarily about new customers at the time. New customers were coming to ECOM already, but it was about making sure the existing core base, loyal base of customers was able to be walked through this process, and they felt like they were going to be getting incremental benefits from giant now inheriting the Peapod brand and business, and taking it to the next stage.

So it was important to me to say, how do we make sure that they feel valued and that they understand there’s going to be a lot more benefits and a lot more improvements happening to the service so that it felt like Giant was additive as this transition was happening. And that meant the extra loyalty points that would be integrated, the new content and shopping tools online would get better. And our same-day service would launch, which we never had in D.C. before. So you’d be able to order for same-day delivery, not just pick-up. So we felt like it was important to talk about all those extra little wins, as the service transition from Peapod to Giant.

Jes (07:52): And how did… Obviously, you came from the marketing team right before this. So how did your marketing perspective influence all those decisions that are being made?

Gregg Dorazio (08:05): I think it all started with knowing you’ve got to look at it through the customer’s eyes, and you have to start with a customer insight, and you have to start with that customer value proposition and almost let that be your guide and work backwards from there. So to me, it was about the insight of who are these customers, why do they value us today, and really defining who they are first, and we realized very quickly. They are upscale, their higher income, they probably live around [inaudible 00:08:39] somewhere. That’s the core consumer, and their shopping is for convenience.

Online grocery was still very, very low penetration a year, two years ago. And so the folks who were choosing to do it, this was an absolute time-saver for them. It’s not like the pet food and electronics and clothing and other things that have come online much, much sooner. Grocery has been one of the last places to transition to E-commerce. And so we knew we can’t alienate that group. That is our core, that’s our brand champion, that is kind of the essence of the brand and at the service. And then let’s build out from there. If they love us for convenience and for service and this white-glove treatment at the front door or at their trunk of their car, how do we keep bringing that and telling that story to the rest of the audience out there?

Jes (09:33): Obviously, it started with Peapod, and you’re in the process of launching Giant delivers. What were some of the things that you took out of the Peapod experience that you said, “Okay, this is definitely working, and we need to build upon it?”

Gregg Dorazio (09:47): I think one of the first ones was just the role that those drivers and folks that are on the front lines of our service. The love and admiration that customers have for them is palpable. And so we saw so many comments and heard so many stories about knowing drivers by name. So we tried to do something even small, like giving them all name tags, which they never had under Peapod, just to make that personal connection even stronger.

But it was truly about that white-glove treatment, where they knew customer names, they were the face of our E-commerce business, and really, it was a point of differentiation. If you think about Amazon, if you think about some of the other players, they’re using gig drivers or contractors, and it’s a different person every week in your neighborhood. Sometimes they’re using their own personal cars, and we have fully branded trucks made for E-commerce ready to carry three temperature states worth of groceries to your door, and sometimes even into your kitchen, and sometimes even in your refrigerator. So we had people who just valued that personal connection and relationship, and us being able to go above and beyond to meet their needs.

Jess (10:59): So one of the things that stood out to me, and obviously we’ve had a little bit of a behind the scenes peek as to the launch of this and the different happenings going on, but one of the things that I found really interesting was not just even the customer perspective, but also how you’ve approached HR to support this, and the opportunities for workers and a flexible work schedule. Can you tell me a little bit more about the benefit on that side of things?

Gregg Dorazio (11:26): Yeah. It’s probably not known by most people, but a lot of our delivery business is out of a warehouse environment. So it is far more efficient to shop groceries, in one large operation and building, and get it out to the customers quicker that way. The challenge with that is you’ve got to have great people in that building, who understand just as we do in the stores, how do you pick out the right kinds of tomatoes and avocados and all the great produce and other things. So there’s been a huge emphasis on building morale, building workforce in that location that really exemplifies all those values that we care about at Giant, and then ultimately for Giant delivers.

And so there’s been a ton of work to offer flexible schedules, to offer incentives, to work with different parts and cross-training around the building. And I think that just built up this much stronger, more stable workforce, who is bought into the business, understands the model. And for them, it’s far more than just a paycheck. It is a livelihood and flexibility, and that people who have come from other countries. We have a huge contingent from outside of the United States. We have a huge contingent, who uses this flexibility, to support their families in a different way. So they’re able to come shop with us, say 8:00 PM to the middle of the night, and then be at home for their kids during the day. So the flexibility has been tremendous to them and really a benefit to us too.

Jes (13:04): Yeah, I think that’s really important to know. I guess my question then becomes going back to what we had spoken about just a few minutes ago in the sense of people like to have that consistency of knowing who’s coming into their home, and on that first-name basis with their drivers. How has that impacted or been an issue for you, if it has, in terms of giving the customer the consistency while providing the flexible work schedule with your employees?

Gregg Dorazio (13:33): You know, it’s definitely been a challenge. I don’t think we’re there yet in terms of making that full connection. I’d love to be able to say, your groceries were packed by someone, and call them out by name, and be able to communicate that and really make the connection from start to finish. We still have a way to go on customer service post order and connections through email and connections through even just the invoicing and visibility to your orders.

So there’s a lot more that we still need to do. And I think that’s our struggle right now, is how do we take every element of that experience and really be deliberate about what do we want it to feel like, and how does it convey what Giant cares about and unlocking those little moments back in people’s houses and how does it unlock great food made easy, which is our positioning. So those are the things that we’re working on right now, is now that we have the base service, we have the base customer value proposition to find. Now it’s about linking so many of those little attributes and making sure that everything in our service is laddering up to that single point of difference.

Jes (14:46): Yeah. I think as you are talking about that and just thinking through that customer journey and how to make it easier and more convenient for the consumer, there has to be a lot of things that you’re finding that aren’t working in doing that. So can you enlighten me to some of the things from your experiences over the past couple of years that haven’t worked, that you’re like, “We tried it, and that’s a hard no?”

Gregg Dorazio (15:16): I think we’re still, definitely experimenting. The beauty of online is that it is almost no effort and no time to run AB tests. And we just finished one this past week with a local page and a local landing page and saying which version is going to be better. And it was to our surprise, the one with more tiles and more visuals actually did better than the one with more products. We thought it would be the other way around in terms of encouraging people to add to their basket.

So the beauty in ECOM is that it is a very dynamic, very data-driven channel for us. So that causes us to really challenge ourselves. And I’d say what hasn’t worked is we just need to get into that mindset even more often of letting the data guide our decision making, and with marketing it’s, especially, and even certain parts of merchandising, a lot of people have a lot of years experience and a lot of intuition. And unfortunately, sometimes that intuition we’re finding is not always correct, myself included. So when we let the data and the heat maps of what the site looks like and where people are clicking and how they’re adding items to their basket, that’s the beauty of fully leveraging what E-commerce is all about with what we bring from the traditional marketing and merchandising and operation side.

Jess (16:40): And is the data almost reflecting some of the trends, in terms of purchasing behavior and merchandising selections and the way people are buying, is it consistent in-store versus ECOM? Are you finding parallels there? Are you finding that it’s different?

Gregg Dorazio (16:58): I would say it’s similar. I mean, everyone is filling their pantry and their refrigerator and freezer in a similar way. They’re looking for the same items. They’re coming to our services, and the average basket is $125, sometimes higher. So they’re certainly getting all their grocery needs from us, but there are a lot of differences, too. Impulse has been one of our challenges. So in a store environment, you’re able to walk by a shipper and a display and maybe put a 20 ounce Coke or that package of donuts that you didn’t expect to buy, or even a floral is a great example.

Floral is very impulse-driven in the store, and you’re picking up a flower for a sibling or mother or someone who’s having a birthday, or you’re on your way somewhere. It is just not the case in E-commerce. So floral has a tenant decks, versus what we see in the store purchases, and bakery is under index for instance. So those kinds of categories, which are more impulse-driven, you need to see the product and put it in your cart in the store, are very challenging to bring that behavior online. So those are the kinds of things that we’re working on today, is how do we add the excitement, showcase these while you’re checking out or via email or some other different means.

Jes (18:18): So I want to go back to something that you said a few minutes ago, and you talked about how the data is sometimes different than what your intuition was. And I think that’s something that Randall and I are constantly… As we’re looking at client work, we’re putting it through the lens of what is their thought process and what’s going to work for them, what’s actually going to solve the problem for them, and not necessarily what do we think is the most visually interesting. And it sounds like you’re going through that internally with the data versus what your intuition is.

Gregg Dorazio (18:53): Absolutely. There was one over the winter that we had this piece of content highlighting warm up, feel good foods for winter, and the best image that conveyed it, that got the most clicks, was a pair of cozy socks. In fact, we refer to this thing as cozy sock tile. And the cozy socks were off the charts. We were like, “Really? It’s just someone’s pair of socks with like a wintery scene out the window in the background.” And yet that got people in the mood for hot chocolate and stew and all kinds of great items after they clicked on it. But who would have thought that just putting someone’s stinky pair of socks out on there was a better piece of art than a great chili or a great food shot? I would have never guessed that, but those are the kinds of things that we’re learning each and every day, and then that’ll make us better for next winter.

And so we’re building up this intuition. Peapod has had a lot of those insights and being able to pass along a lot of that before, but we’re understanding our market is different too. And the other thing is it may be very upscale, and we may be delivering for a lot of convenience-oriented folks, but people still love a deal. Some of the best performing content that we have is still, “Hey, save $3 when you buy $10 worth of these products.” So those are constant reminders that even though we know our customer pretty well, they’ll continue to surprise us.

Jes (20:26): Okay. So I have to go back to this cozy sock thing because I mean, I’m all about a good pair of socks, but I’ve never really correlated putting socks into grocery retail advertising. So, have you tested that in other seasons, and what has worked, and I guess the bigger question is, are you finding lifestyle imagery and things that aren’t necessarily related to the product, but maybe the season and the temperatures and those other peripheral items that are going on in someone’s life are more impactful than a product image?

Gregg Dorazio (21:03): Yeah, I’d say we’re still evolving that knowledge. And we’re still understanding the role of lifestyle versus the role of very deliberate product shots or value-oriented messages or health messages. They all look a little different. They all perform different at different times. I don’t think there’s one hard rule yet that we’ve been able to land on, but it’s certainly starting to become directional. And what I think is also important for all of us as we’re creating these experiences online and in our marketing and our communications is to realize E-commerce, the shopping is done at home on the couch, in front of the TV. The shopping is done at the dinner table. The shopping is done on the train ride into work. It’s all over the place.

So the mindset, sometimes they may be relaxing at home and to them cozy socks or thinking of their upcoming vacation or whatever it might be, that could be the right mindset and the right trigger to get them to put different items into their cart or to try something new. And I think that’s the piece that we’re still learning about where they are shopping, how are they shopping, what’s triggering people at different times, different days of the week because they are building that cart over six and seven days, versus you’ve got one chances of pushing the cart through the store. It’s a much, much different experience and mindset with a customer.

Jes (22:28): It is. And it’s interesting because it’s almost the difference of, “I’m sitting at a baseball game, and I see my kid slide through the mud. Oh shoot, I need bleach to wash his white baseball pants.” And so it’s like, if I’m going to the store, it’s a mental note. If I’m shopping online for my groceries, it becomes, “Oh, I just need to pull up the app and put it in there.” And then what else pops up? Stain stick, all those different products that will help me solve that particular problem as a consumer. So it is a little bit of a mind shift, especially when you’re talking about something that is not necessarily wants but needs as well.

Gregg Dorazio (23:11): Absolutely.

Jes (23:12): All right. Well, thank you so much for your insight, Gregg. I appreciate it.

Gregg Dorazio (23:15): Of course. Anytime, Jess.

Jes (23:39): Now, go and grab yourself a drink because every drink is better shared. Feel free to share Fork and Lens with your team, colleagues, and friends. If you enjoyed today’s message, please subscribe to get weekly access to new recipes for creative and marketing success. You can also check us out at forkandlens.com or viscul.co. Until next time.