marketplace
Area company stays alive in volatile Internet
marketplace
By jennifer kohlhepp
Staff Writer
NORTH BRUNSWICK — While other online grocers’ businesses went stale, Netgrocer.com kept fresh by offering customers more.
About two years ago, in a time when Priceline.com, Webvan and HomeRuns.com collapsed under the competition of supermarket heavyweights, Netgrocer.com remained successful by changing its name to NeXpansion and teaming up with retailers and manufacturers to offer their customers more products.
Unlike many of the other online grocers, that relied on a voucher system where customers purchase products online, but still had to visit their local supermarket to pick up goods, Netgrocer.com filled orders and shipped directly from the manufacturer or from their own 120,000-square-foot warehouse in North Brunswick .
"Our Endless Aisle service is like the salad bar of 10 years ago," Vice President of Business Development Steve Weinstein said. "We’re creating space for specialty items without changing the essence of the supermarket."
The Endless Aisle service, launched in April 2002, provides retailers with Internet software that allows their customers to chose from an additional 40,000 brand-name products not in wide distribution around the country.
"There’s a need for our Endless Aisle service," Weinstein said. "Customers love it because they get the products they need, and retailers love it because it frees up more of their employees’ time from researching and finding products."
Weinstein said the Endless Aisle also offers retailers an online presence and a better chance for traditional supermarkets to compete with superstores like Wal-Mart.
Today, NeXpansion partners with major supermarkets across the nation, including Pathmark, Acme, Food Lion and Winn-Dixie, to provide the products that supermarkets don’t have the room to stock on their shelves.
"The Endless Aisle offers specialty, gourmet, ethnic and other favorite regional items, home appliances, fragrances, baby needs, pet items, diet and organic foods, as well as homeopathic remedies," Weinstein said.
According to Weinstein, more than 63 percent of the time the company can find that rare item that a customer is looking for.
"If we can’t find it, the item is most likely not made anymore, and the customer is just as happy to hear that, so they can end their search," Weinstein said.
NeXpansion’s decision to partner with the competition is one of the reasons Netgrocer.com kept alive in the dying online grocer industry.
Weinstein also attributes the fact that Netgrocer.com is one of the last remaining online grocers to the company’s decision to ship only nonperishable and shelf goods and consumers’ favorite hard-to-find items.
"We know our customers would rather shop in their local supermarkets for the things you have to see, touch and feel, like fruit," Weinstein said. "We tried to set ourselves apart from the supermarkets, unlike our competitors who tried to replace them."
Netgrocer.com ships all deliveries via Federal Express to the entire continental United States for no more than $11.99 per order from its warehouse located on Corporate Road.
The company guarantees delivery within two to four business days.
"Although our business coincides with the demographics of population, and our largest areas are New York City and the tristate area, Texas and California, we can reach anyone in rural towns, even if they live up in the mountains," Weinstein said.
Key consumer groups for Netgrocer include the homebound, busy families and special food needs groups, including diabetics, dieters and brand loyalists, according to Weinstein.
Weinstein said the company also services small companies, schools and embassies around the world who provide servicemen and women with supplies.
Some of the more interesting orders Netgrocer has recently filled include one for $800 worth of sugar-free Kool-Aid packets to a school in New York City and one to a customer who needed supplies to get through the winter at the South Pole.
To shop online visit www.netgrocer.com.
NeXpansion is a private company whose largest shareholders include Parmalat SpA, a $6 billion multinational dairy and food company and Cendant Corp., a $6 billion global provider of business and consumer services, according to Weinstein.