An investment in customer experience that pays for itself

Distributors using Pepper see 40x return on eCommerce investment

Jan 11, 2023

Figure 1: Percent basket size increase after 16 weeks for distributors that participated in our study on revenue lift from launching Pepper eCommerce

One of the most important insights we’ve taken away from countless eCommerce launches is that when done properly, it quickly becomes a cash flow generating investment for food distributors. We’ve seen this play out time and time again with Pepper’s clients, and we are excited to publish for the first time the revenue lift data behind these anecdotes.

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Here’s the punchline – distributors launching eCommerce on Pepper enjoy a 20% increase in basket size after 16 weeks, which equates to a 40X return on investment.

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‍Case Study #1: A Florida-based produce distributor, working with Pepper since 2021, saw average order size for its eCommerce customers increase by 23%. This was driven in part by a significant sales lift in non-produce items.

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Case Study #2: An East Coast produce distributor migrated 400+ independent and small chain customers onto mobile eCommerce and saw large increases in first time item purchases across that customer base. Average order size increased by 25% in the first 15 weeks of using the app, and the average number of SKUs ordered increased by 75%, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly incremental sales.

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*Figure 2: Average basket size by week after eCommerce launch for a Florida produce distributor*

*Figure 3: New items purchased in the weeks following eCommerce launch for an East Coast Produce Distributor*

‍Case Study #3: An East Coast broadline distributor has been running successful in-app promotion campaigns to upsell items from their catalog of over 40K items. Their efforts led to a 29% increase in average order size and a $270K increase in month gross profit.

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Across all distributors that participated in this study, monthly sales per location increased by $400 after 16 weeks of launching eCommerce with Pepper. In short, it’s an investment in your customer experience that pays for itself.

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