Continente Online strengthens backoffice platform to sustain growth

COLLAB distinguished with the APDC / Siemens Innovation Award

After launching five years ago, Continente Online renewed its website with customer satisfaction in mind. The hypermarket chain’s main page has 75,000 registered customers, a figure that translates into a growth rate of 30 percent during 2004.

The renewal of the site was achieved through the adoption of the Microsoft Commerce Server platform, with the introduction of a new menu, easy to navigate, with guaranteed greater speed.

In a press conference, António Gavinho, responsible for the Continente Online project, stressed that «one of the objectives was for the customer to close the purchase more quickly, hence the need to introduce a new platform or a upgrade”. The option fell on the software «For being connected to Internet Explorer», added the official.

According to AntĂłnio Gavinho, the products most purchased by service subscribers are food, hygiene and cleaning products, since the service online it is most used to make purchases of the month. The average of the total expenses per customer is fixed at 150/200 euros per month.

Other benefits of the new website are the offer of 20 thousand products, access to store promotions, customization of the order that allows the purchase of fresh products by the kilo or the unit, such as specifying whether you want, for example, greener fruit or ripe, or even, whole or sliced ​​bread. «We want the customer to feel like he is in the store,» said António Gavinho.

The concept “O meu Continente” was also added to the website (so that the website can be customized according to the preferences of each customer), payment at home in an ATM machine, possibility of placing orders for up to seven days and creating an area where you can write down the shopping list and the delivery address.

The virtual hypermarket has a geographical coverage that covers the regions of Greater Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Viana do Castelo, GuimarĂŁes, Leiria and Algarve.

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