Peapod sees a bigger role for mobile

Peapod's mobile app

Peapod LLC is expecting mobile commerce to play a larger role in its business, co-founder and president Andrew Parkinson says. “In three years, we’ll see 50% of orders through mobile,” he says.

Peapod, the U.S. online retail grocery arm of Dutch supermarket company Royal Ahold, is gearing up to take advantage of mobile commerce in multiple ways. With a staff of some 60 in-house I.T. developers, it has developed a mobile technology platform suitable for virtually any device popular with consumers.

It recently built a shopping app for Apple Inc.’s iPad that lets shoppers build grocery lists and place orders. The e-retailer is finding that iPad users spend more, on average, than the typical Peapod ticket of $150, Parkinson says.

Parkinson’s brother, co-founder and chief technology officer Thomas Parkinson, says the company’s mobile technology can be made to work with any new device that arrives on the market. “If Dell comes out with a new tablet computer, I’m ready for it,” he says.

Next on his to-do list, he adds, is building mobile apps that will let Peapod shoppers more easily share their grocery lists and favorite products with friends through Facebook and Twitter.

Peapod is No. 47 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.