Wegmans Revamps Online Shopping Tool

Wegmans.com now enables users to make shopping lists that help them spot savings, check prices before going to the store, remember ingredients for recipes, quickly find items for their special dietary needs and even save lists. The updated functionality was recently rolled out after consumers weighed in on site improvements."Customers gave us lots of feedback following the launch of our new shopping list builder early last year," said Jo Natale, director of media relations for Wegmans Food Markets. "So we returned to the drawing board to incorporate their ideas, and the result is a much-improved tool that is easy to use, will help customers remember items they need [and] save money and time."To test-pilot the list builder after the changes were incorporated, the grocer worked with a group called Eyes on Usability at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology. The group included some wegmans.com "list" users, who had earlier shared their ideas for the site, as well as others who’d never tried it. Their comments and observations helped shape many of the features now in place.For instance, now adding or removing items takes a single click, and users have a short cut to composing a list with the "Jump Start Your List" section, which features the 26 items most people buy often.On the Shopping Lists page, users can build a list by going to the search box and entering in what they want. They'll then get a short list that lets them add the general item to the list quickly, and a more detailed list below of all the different brands, types and sizes available, in case greater specificity is preferred.Online shoppers can also build lists by clicking on a department and adding the items, or searching for an item with the brand name you like. Users with special dietary needs can search for items by "Wellness Key" to find easily the items they require.Additionally, shoppers can look up recipes on the site and add the necessary ingredients and their amounts to the list with one click, and locate all of the Shoppers Club savings available for a particular item or all specials for the week.While logged in, users can compose and save as many lists as they like, enabling them to build a "master" list of items they often buy, and make a new copy each week, adding or removing whatever is needed or not needed that week.By selecting the Wegmans store where you shop, shoppers receive a list sorted according to that particular store's layout, so customers never have to backtrack pick up items in aisles they've already passed. The shopping list builder has additionally been optimized to print out on fewer pages, and users can print a map of the store and the recipes added to the list all at the same time."Customers who have tried it seem very pleased. One customer, who also happens to be an information technology professional, wrote to say it might be the most extraordinary software she'd ever used," Natale said.Wegmans, based in Rochester, N.Y., operates 72 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland.

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Wegmans Revamps Online Shopping Tool

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