Rimi’s e-shop also expands its reach towards business customers

Rimi successfully launched an e-store for private customers in 2020, when the Covid-19 lockdown inhibited daily visits to stores. E-commerce format manager Helen Lednei said that at that time there was no focus on business customers, all resources were spent on serving private customers “However, since this year we have especially focused on business customers and developed various solutions for them and recruited a separate team of people to be there for business customers,” she explained to businesses focusing.

Lednei said that Rimi’s business customers are wall to wall and their number is growing steadily. “Perhaps there are some shortcomings in the development here, as we do not have e-invoice payment at the moment, it is currently being worked on. If we can solve this issue, our door will open to even more business customers”, he confirmed.

Thorough preliminary work

Before developing e-store solutions for business customers, several focus group interviews were conducted in Rimi to find out the needs of companies. “We asked what would be the ideal conditions for ordering and how could the goods they ordered arrive. Of course, sufficient assortment, good service were mentioned as important components, and they also wanted one specific contact, so as not to wait on the line of the customer’s call center. At the same time, the ability to quickly solve problems was considered very important. Since many smaller companies do not have a separate person who processes orders in the e-shop, it is usually done by the company manager. They don’t want to fragment their working day with dozens of little things, so we tried to make shopping in the e-environment as smooth as possible for them,” admitted Lednei.

Just as much as private customers, companies also prefer to have the ordered goods delivered to them, as many as 86% of the customer base. “But there is also such a group of customers, as much as 11%, who value the fact that they can pick up the ordered goods themselves at a store that suits them. There are also such customers who use an express order instead. They come up with an idea, place an order and pick up the goods in 30 minutes,” Lednei described the possibilities. He added that the special feature of the express order is the limitation of the product selection: you can choose 20 different products for the order, while the quantities are limited to 20 units. “If there is a desire to get more of one product in quantity, it has to be ordered in advance, because then it goes through our ordering system and we order these specific goods to the store,” shared Lednei.

High goals

Today, Rimi has half of Estonia covered with home delivery, including Saaremaa and Muhu and the surroundings of all major cities, such as Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu, Narva, Rakvere, Tapa, Viljandi and their immediate surroundings. According to Lednei, quite a large part of Viljandi county has been bitten. “With the Viljandi store, we partially serve Järva County as well, from the southern part of Viljandi County, Karksi, Abja-Paluoja are in the delivery area. Of course, the delivery area includes the summer towns of Käsmu, Võsu, Haapsalu and Narva-Jõesuu. In Tallinn, we have the largest delivery area, which today extends to Haapsalun, Märjamaan and Järvakandi. The delivery area of ​​the Tallinn region is a little more modest in the direction of Lääne-Virumaa, there we have expanded the home delivery area up to Kehran,” the e-commerce format manager listed the regions. “Our desire is to expand everywhere, but we have to take into account that with the addition of each region, the costs also increase.”

He added that, unfortunately, the population density in rural areas is not high enough – when making expansion decisions, it is necessary to thoroughly consider how much more resources are needed with the addition of another region, because each courier’s driving hour and kilometer is quite a large expense. “We can already cover all of Estonia with home delivery today, but then we would be talking about other costs. Of course, we want to reach this goal, but we have to act wisely,” said Lednei. According to him, on the other hand, customers in rural areas are more loyal, because there is little competition and if the service is suitable, they will not change their home store as a joke. In larger cities and especially in Tallinn, there are plenty of offers, and customer preferences are not so permanent.

Shopping cart details

Business customer project manager Liidia Lednei, who is Rimi’s contact person for business customers, said that the assortment is the same as for private customers. “It is possible to order from us everything that is needed in the office or on the site. From milk and fruits to office goods, for example, Rimi’s Health Friday is very popular, then the goods are ordered for the next week and you get a 15% discount,” he said. All discount codes apply to business customers and all customer offers are also available to them.

“If we can say that the private customer is quite price-sensitive and closely follows various campaigns, the business customer orders according to his needs. At the same time, if there are long-lasting milks or other long-lasting products in the campaign, more of them will be stocked,” said Liidia Lednei. When talking about the preferences of the business customer, it turned out that the TOP selection of the shopping cart includes the so-called coffee corner products: coffee, candies, tea, milk. Although, like private customers, TOP includes milk and banana, the list also has special features, namely, there is a mix of Kalev’s seven candies. “In the case of private customers, we don’t often see that sweets are on the list of TOP products, but in the case of business customers, it is a completely logical choice for a coffee corner or on the table for guests,” added Liidia Lednei.

One of the most important e-shop activities is the assembly of ordered goods. Helen Lednei said that speed, accuracy and quality are the keywords they use. Special attention is paid to ensure that the fruit and vegetables packed for the customer are fresh and of high quality. For this purpose, Rimi has established a freshness guarantee. In addition, there are very precise requirements set for the assemblers of the goods, which must be the shelf life of the products, according to which the goods must be assembled.

Convenience services

A business customer has several options for paying for purchases: in an e-store environment with a bank link, credit and prepayment. When asked how companies can use Rimi’s credit, Liidia Lednei said that an application must be filled out on the website. Currently, the amount of credit is 300, 500 or 1000 euros, but it is possible to apply for a larger amount. The application is reviewed by the credit control, which makes a decision on granting credit within five working days.

For Rimi’s business customer, the purchase process has been made as simple and carefree as possible. According to the manager of the e-store, one of the so-called convenience services is the possibility of repeated orders, which can also be used by private customers. “For this, one and the same order must be set up for the following two months. So, for example, five kilos of bananas, a few packs of coffee and a bag of candy come to the company every Monday. This order can be supplemented if necessary, if the customer sees that something else has run out,” he explained.

Recently, a new solution was completed for Rimi’s business customers, which allows the company to use a group account. This gives the company’s subdivisions the opportunity to use a single credit assigned to the company.

As an environmentally conscious company, Rimi receives goods in a paper bag or using a Baun deposit bag. The latter is currently only available in the delivery area of ​​the Haaberst store, but Rimi plans to expand the Baun shopping bag service to other stores as well.