Dive Brief:
- Huck’s Market has rolled out its proprietary online ordering and delivery program across all its stores, according to a LinkedIn post from c-store e-commerce company Vroom Delivery.
- This update allows customers to place orders through the company’s app and website while third-party sites make the actual delivery, said Vroom Delivery CEO John Nelson via email.
- The move streamlines the work it takes to fulfill delivery by aggregating orders from different sources while also allowing customers to use Huck’s loyalty rewards and giving the company access to all customer contact and order information.
Dive Insight:
Huck’s move to offer digital ordering through its website and app joins a trend of c-stores looking to enhance their omnichannel presence, both to encourage more sales and also to capture more data about those sales.
Companies like Rutter’s and Nouria Energy have added proprietary digital ordering in the past year. Circana data from last summer noted that c-store e-commerce sales had seen double-digit year-over-year growth each of the past four quarters.
In a world where many customers are still counting their pennies, “proprietary ordering through Vroom Delivery still allows the third party delivery services to fulfill the orders, but at a much lower cost, benefiting both Huck’s and consumers, as prices on their app are same as in-store,” said Nelson.
Members of the Huck’s Bucks Bigg Rewards program can also earn and use rewards points on orders placed through the app — another feature that can’t be accessed when customers order on third-party sites.
Huck’s first started offering delivery in 2020. The company began working with Vroom in late 2023 to first aggregate orders from Grubhub and Uber Eats, and then to increase the number of listings and cut down on out of stock items with its automated menu management tool, said Nelson.
In addition to the app and website, the system also takes orders through GrubHub and Uber Eats, with plans to add DoorDash next month and Godfather’s Pizza, a pizza chain with some locations inside Huck’s stores, after that, Nelson said.
Carmi, Illinois-based Huck’s is an employee-owned company that has around 125 locations in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.
