How can we take ownership of customer relationships and data?

In its physical stores, Samkaup had good contact with customers, but in digital commerce, it sold products exclusively through a third-party marketplace. This meant that they had no ownership over customer relationships or data.

The vision was clear: Samkaup wanted its own commerce platform to build a direct relationship with customers and grow the business through personalised omnichannel offers and a strong loyalty concept.

A single platform for sales and loyalty

When Vertica started working with Samkaup, the company was already building a well-functioning loyalty app in collaboration with Vertica's partner, Lobyco. The app focused on supporting the in-store shopping experience, but did not support online purchasing as the underlying commerce architecture was not present.

Vertica's task was to build an e-commerce platform that could drive sales. Both via a web-based sales channel and directly through the app. At the same time, the aim of the platform was to bring together customer data across channels and bridge the gap between store and online.

This would allow Samkaup to optimise the overall buying experience across all channels. 

Close cooperation across the North Sea

Prior to the launch of the project, the entire project team from Vertica travelled to Iceland to establish a close relationship with the team from Samkaup and to learn more about Icelandic culture and everyday life.

Although Denmark and Iceland have much in common, it is important to understand the unique Icelandic culture. This includes the demographics of sparsely populated areas, where e-commerce plays a significant role in the supply chain.

The trip included field research throughout the value chain of the grocery company: visits to physical stores, interviews with store owners, review of inventory processes and more.

With a good knowledge of Samkaup's business and challenges, conditions were optimal for developing a solution that addressed pain points and identified business opportunities.

A digital solution fit for the future

The finished e-commerce solution uses Umbraco as its CMS and is built on ASP.NET Core. The search engine is Elasticsearch, and the frontend is developed in Vue 3 with styling in Tailwind CSS. With an event-based architecture, order and payment flow is extra fast, which is the cornerstone of a good buying experience.

The commerce engine supports sales via the webshop and future sales via the app. It is therefore central to omnichannel ambitions.    

This makes it a modern e-commerce solution of a high, international quality, where Samkaup can now personalise and target offers based on each customer's shopping pattern and consumption behaviour.

Results

The new solution has put the grocery business at the head of the pack of digital frontrunners, and it has done so faster than you can say "Eyjafjallajökull".

In just 8 months, Samkaup went from relying on a third-party vendor to taking ownership of their entire omnichannel journey. The customer experience – both online and in-store – has improved, which is reflected in the good results.