“NearSt has enhanced our Google presence in a way we could never have done on our own.”
- Claire Goddard, Marketing Manager
The Problem
- Help the growing number of local customers searching online see that Pricewatch has what they need.
- Get these local shoppers into Pricewatch stores, without needing to change the way head office or in-store teams operate.
- Develop a better understanding of online grocery shoppers in Sussex.
The Solution
Using technology to reach today's customers is essential, but integrating a new technology with existing systems is typically a headache. There was zero technical work for anyone in the Pricewatch team to unlock the solutions Claire was looking to use.
Thanks to NearSt’s simple direct integration with the existing in-store EDGEPoS Point of Sale system, in just four days Claire was able to enhance the existing inventory data in their system and display the full product range of each store online.
Claire was able to continue running Pricewatch's stores as normal while unlocking access to a suite of new local customer engagement channels on Google and Facebook.
“NearSt has been a seamless transition”
- Claire
The Results
After deploying NearSt, Claire has seen Pricewatch stores climb to
the top of Google and out-ranking local competitors such as Waitrose and Tesco in online search results with NearSt’s Local Visibility Report tool (see below).
Business Results Comparison (above) explained - ARP: Average Rank Position across data points where the business is found in the top 20 results. ATRP: Average Total Rank Position across all data points searched. SoLV: Share of Local Voice is the percentage of data points where the business ranks in the top three positions.
In the first quarter of 2023, Pricewatch saw a +22% increase in shopper clicks on ‘Directions’ within their Google Business Profiles - a strong indicator of local shopper store visit intent. By providing relevant and convenient product information, Pricewatch are now attracting more online shoppers into their physical stores
As part of the solution, Claire activated Local Inventory Ads (LIA). In May, Pricewatch saw 96% of their local Impressions come from LIA alone with an ROI of 11:1. Meaning hundreds of thousands of more local customers were seeing that Pricewatch stores had the products they were searching for online. Claire told us, “...when it’s Sunday evening and other shops are closed and someone has forgotten to buy their milk, we’re not just open but the top result!”
Over two weeks at the start of May, there were also two Bank Holidays. Using LIA over these busy periods, Pricewatch stores saw an uplift of online impressions by 9% and clicks on their products increased by 18% when compared to the same 2-week period the month before - driving greater local awareness and more in-store customers.
“Some of our branches have been trading for several years and some local people weren’t aware of our store. NearSt has made it possible for us to reach these people. It’s been amazing to see the Impressions and how many people we’ve reached - it’s been very impressive.”
- Claire
Find out more
Claire spoke to us in more depth about deploying Local Inventory Ads, how she is utilising her new access to local analytics and what drove her to expand NearSt across the Pricewatch network. To read about this, click here or enter your details below.
About Us
NearSt is the market leader in the real-time local inventory space and operates in every sector across retail. NearSt is now the fastest and easiest way to connect your in-store inventory to the biggest search and social platforms in the world.
Like Claire, if you want to start using NearSt to connect your products to places like Google and Meta, increase footfall and gain customer insights, register for more information here or email us at: hello@near.st.
