News

Big Y Foods launches first-ever grocery integration with Groupon

June 6, 2011

Big Y Foods, Inc., Incentive Targeting and HaloEffect today announced that they have teamed with Groupon, to bring social buying to the grocery retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. The partnership combines Groupon's social buying platform with Incentive Targeting's retail shopper marketing technology, Big Y's grocery retail loyalty program, and HaloEffect's agency creative and grocery marketing expertise. Big Y will be the first grocery retailer to offer Groupon deals digitally loaded to shoppers' loyalty cards.

Big Y's first Groupon offer, distributed among Springfield, MA subscribers on June 7, is for a newly introduced Shellfish Grill Pack, including lobster tails, mussels, clams, and other seafood suitable for grilling, which retails at $39.99 and is being offered at a 40 percent discount for $24.

For this test, a shopper purchases the Groupon, enters their Big Y Express Saving Club membership number and the Shellfish Grill Pack deal is electronically loaded to the shopper's loyalty card. When the shopper purchases the promoted products at a Big Y supermarket, the deal is automatically credited at check out. With this event, Big Y becomes the first multi-store grocery retailer to run a Groupon deal, and the only retailer of any kind to fully integrate Groupon offers to their loyalty card system.

"As pioneers in loyalty cards for retail, we are excited to partner with Groupon and Incentive Targeting to test social buying with our shoppers," said Michael D'Amour, vice president of sales and merchandising for Big Y Foods, a 61-store grocery chain headquartered in Springfield, Mass. "We anticipate that we will attract new customer interest as we explore new avenues in interactive customer marketing."

"Consumers in the U.S. spend over $550 billion a year on groceries," said Tom Schneider, president of HaloEffect, a marketing firm based in Boston, "and CPG companies devote $35 billion annually to marketing and promotion. We see this partnership having the potential to revolutionize the grocery marketing landscape."

"The grocery retail industry is a fantastic opportunity for us that has been largely untapped," said Darren Schwartz, senior vice president of sales for Groupon. "We look forward to working with Incentive Targeting and HaloEffect to introduce the Groupon model to new partners across the grocery industry and pass on unbeatable deals to our subscribers."