Stores aim to check out social media

LIKE MOST other Irish companies, wholesale grocery group Musgrave is trying to make sense of how best to utilise social media and the internet for its own benefit.

Its Superquinn subsidiary was into online delivery long before Musgrave took it over last October. Now SuperValu is getting in on the act.

About 35 stores are currently equipped to take online orders from customers and Musgrave plans to expand this footprint this year.

“Our plan is to get to national coverage in the next few months,” chief executive Chris Martin told me this week.

SuperValu has also clocked up about 85,000 friends to its Facebook page.

And it has also become the first Irish grocery chain to develop a fully transactional mobile phone app.

Not to be outdone, sister retail brand Centra has been making friends on Facebook, too. More than 100,000 signed up last year alone.

It’s developed a Centra Smile loyalty programme, which alerts shoppers to in-store deals and notifies them of free gifts on their birthdays. Centra is also piloting a Smile smartphone app to tie into this loyalty theme.

“The feedback has been excellent,” Martin said. “It’s very much in tune with Centra in being edgy and different.”

Musgrave is keen to establish an internet presence in the UK, where it supplies the Londis and Budgens chains.

Londis launched its webshop in March to allow retailers order goods online. It expects about 800 of them to be

regularly using the service by the end of this year.