S4rb Helps British Suppliers Connect With Waitrose Customers

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 27 January 2017

UPDATED: 27 January 2017

Solutions for Retail Brands (S4RB) is helping to bring local and regional suppliers closer to Waitrose customers.

The private brand grocery retail specialist has increased supplier engagement with the supermarket by adding a new service to its supplier communications platform – Waitrose Engage. This new service is specifically designed to support local and regional suppliers in providing product descriptions, which will be displayed in store.

Suppliers are able to select the region specific to them and draft a short explanation of their product. Once approved, a shelf edge ticket is created which informs shoppers about their product. This approach has been implemented in line with ‘The Waitrose Way’ - an ongoing commitment by Waitrose to build long-term relationships with farmers and suppliers respectively.

David Taylor, head of supplier engagement at Solutions for Retail Brands, said:

“We first present suppliers with a short video on best practice for getting the most out of Waitrose Engage and how this tool can benefit their business. This is a great opportunity to highlight the quality, provenance and integrity of ingredients and point of difference from other products in the Waitrose range.

“This also reiterates Waitrose values of championing British produce, treading lightly on the environment, supporting responsible sourcing and treating people fairly across the board.”

Waitrose regional buyer, Tracey Marshall, explains further:

“The provenance of food and drink is important to our customers and this is a great way for local and regional producers to reinforce their credentials. The new approach has far surpassed the previous procedure, with products displaying the latest tickets reportedly performing 25 per cent better than those without.”

Suppliers have seen a great benefit too, as Theresa Waterworth, of Pipers Honey explains:

“The results have been fantastic and our sales have increased by a huge 400 per cent. It was so easy to create our point of sale statement which has helped us engage further with potential customers.”

Nottingham-based S4RB, which was founded in 2006, creates and manages innovative software solutions to improve engagement and relationships between retailers, their own brand suppliers and their customers.

For more details on S4RB visit http://www.s4rb.com

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