Online Grocer Ocado Selects Mercado’s IntuiFind For Effective Online Purchasing
Ocado deploys IntuiFind to provide a superior customer experience
FREMONT, CA. – October 21, 2002 - Mercado Software, the leading Search and Browse solution provider for e-Business, today announced that Ocado, a leading online UK grocer backed by the retailing giant John Lewis Partnership, successfully deployed Mercado’s IntuiFind solution to power its online grocery service at www.ocado.com. IntuiFind lets Ocado’s customers quickly find exactly what they need from the grocer’s product range of over 10,000 items. By making search much faster and more accurate, Ocado is looking to improve the site’s ease of use, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately increase revenues by converting more shoppers to buyers.
After evaluating numerous search providers, Ocado selected Mercado`s IntuiFind solution for its highly accurate search, powerful browsing capabilities, and overall robustness. “Making search faster and more accurate was critical to delivering an effective customer experience on our site. We needed a solution that allows customers to immediately find the items they are seeking,” explained Mark Richardson, Head of IT for Ocado. “We want to differentiate our service from the other grocers. Providing superior customer service with powerful search and browse is a key part of this strategy.”
Ocado partners with major UK supermarket chain Waitrose, and aims to become the leading UK online grocery retailer. Ocado is the newest entry in the online grocery market, offering the quality and value for which Waitrose is renowned, alongside reliable service and convenient delivery times from a company dedicated to home delivery. Ocado was launched in January 2002, and was initially confined to a pilot area surrounding Hemel Hempstead. Following a very successful pilot, Ocado is now available to 1.89 million households across Hertfordshire and London with plans to continue roll out throughout the year.
The company is looking to increase the conversion of shoppers to buyers on its site, and to increase the size of the average shopping cart. Ocado chose Mercado’s IntuiFind to help support these goals. IntuiFind helps Ocado’s customers find the products they need with powerful intuitive search, and lets them drill down to the most relevant items by browsing a set of categories generated dynamically based on the customer’s search request. IntuiFind’s dynamic browse also helps Ocado increase impulse buying by presenting customers with related categories with which they may not have been familiar.
"Online retailing is a highly competitive market. To keep customers, sites must provide an easy, intuitive method to find products,” said Menachem Cohen, Mercado’s President and CEO. “We’re proud that we can help retailers like Ocado create an enticing shopping environment and increase their profitability with our solution.”
About Ocado
Ocado, the Internet grocer working in partnership with Waitrose, started piloting its service on 23rd January 2002 in the Hemel Hempstead area with the address www.ocado.com. Ocado is made up of a formidable team of retail, grocery and logistics experts who believe the sophisticated technology behind the service will give it the edge over the existing leaders in this sector. The whole service has been designed from scratch to deliver exceptional levels of customer service such as deliveries within a one-hour time slot.
About Mercado Software, Inc.
Mercado™ Software is the recognized leader of e-business Search and Browse solutions for organizations worldwide, including Sears, Boise Office Solutions, John Lewis Ltd., Swisscom, Caterpillar, Blockbuster Video and others. Mercado`s IntuiFind™ is the first complete Search and Browse solution for large-scale e-business applications. With the patented IntuiFind technology, Mercado Software has developed best-of-class intuitive free text and parametric search, integrated with dynamic browsing by categories and attributes. IntuiFind customers report higher productivity, increased customer satisfaction and lower total cost of ownership. For more information about Mercado Software please visit www.mercado.com.
Mercado Software will host a free web seminar featuring Ocado on November 7 at 9:00 AM PST. To attend, direct your browser to the following address: http://www.mercado.com/Events/webinars/webinar_110702/pr_reg.html.
Media Contacts
Brian Hobbs
Mercado Software Inc.
Tel: 510-870-8015
Fax: 510-870-8100
Email: bhobbs@mercado.com
Claire Harper
Ocado
Tel: 01442 898 500
Email: claire.harper@ocado.com
Hilda Martinez
Sterling Communications Inc.
Tel: 415-749-6550
Fax: 415-749-6551
Email: hmartinez@sterlingpr.com
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