Supermarket Realizes Dramatic Benefit from ReceiptEZ
Green Hills, an independent high volume supermarket, out of Syracuse NY has always set the standard for customer loyalty and customer specific marketing. In the shadow of encroaching competition from larger chains and super stores, Green Hills has been able to maintain a strong business and a loyal customer base. Green Hill's success has been no accident. The CEO of Green Hills, Gary Hawkins, is no stranger to strategic planning and his Director of MIS, Lisa Piron, brings a suite of complimenting skills to the table. This dynamic team is constantly looking for new ways to give their customers what they want while growing the business.

In October of 2003 TPG was afforded the opportunity to meet with Green Hills to discuss the benefits of TPG's lines of industry leading color thermal printers. After a brief meeting at the Green Hills site it was decided that TPG's A760 hybrid color thermal printer line would be installed at all 16 of the store's operating lanes. Max International, a converter of thermal paper, and Kanzaki Specialty Papers, a two-color thermal paper manufacturer, also supported the initiative by providing Green Hills with a supply of Green/Black thermal paper. To meet Green Hill's demand for intelligent graphics and receipt messaging TPG's receipt management software, ReceiptEZ™, was incorporated and run independently of their existing application. A local POS VAR was enlisted by Green Hills to execute all installations, and did so in just one days time.

With equipment and software installed and a couple of hours training from a TPG team, Green Hills was up and running customer specific promotional messages on their new TPG printers. The experienced team at Green Hills immediately set out to determine the value of this new marketing tool and to test its ability to effect customer behavior.

An analysis of spending trends at Green Hills indicated that the Produce and Bakery Departments were slightly down on their customer counts. Two promotions were created using ReceiptEZ and were soon being issued to select customers using ReceiptEZ's targeting tools and the A760 printers. The net result was encouraging. The Produce targeted promotion yielded a 10.45% redemption rate. Those customers who in fact utilized the coupon were shown to spend 35% more on produce than they spent during the same time period in the previous year. This increase in spending offset the $0.50 off that the coupon granted. Equally encouraging was the fact that 8% of the coupon using households were not historic patrons of the Produce Department, implying that the promotion influenced their shopping behavior. The bakery promotion produced similar results with a redemption rate of 5%, increase in spending by a coupon-redeeming customer of 57% and 31% of coupon users being new patrons to the Bakery.

Several other promotions were also run to determine customer reactions to receipt based promotions. One such promotion was targeted at those customers spending over $100 in groceries in one visit. As with Produce, membership in this customer category had shown a slight decline. Again this promotion was issued at the bottom of a two color thermal receipt. The incentive of 5% off the next purchase of $100 or more proved to be a significant motivator as redemption rates soared to 52% , average spending in the over $100 category increased 19%, and category membership climbed up 13%.

With the effectiveness of the receipt as a marketing tool proven, Green Hills continues today to use the TPG A760 printer to generate two color receipts and targeted promotions to keep their customers loyal and to increase revenue.