Woolworths & Last Yard expand digital shelf strategy partnership

Last Yard has announced its expanded partnership with Woolworths Group, at the NRF24 conference (widely considered the world's largest and leading retail conference) in New York. As Australia's largest retailer, Woolworths is dedicated to centring its strategies and operations around the customer experience. Their cooperation with Last Yard, which started 22 years ago, focuses on providing innovative solutions for in-store, shelf edge and ticketing strategies.

Speaking on stage at the NRF24 conference, Chris Stoyles, the Chief Executive Officer of Last Yard, expressed the company's satisfaction at partnering with Woolworths Group in their transition from paper shelf edge labels to electronic shelf labels (ESL). The initiative is directed towards digitising the in-store customer experience. Stoyles stated, "Since we began working with Woolworths Group 22 years ago, we have understood that they strive to put the customer at the centre of everything they do."

Angelo Clayton, the Technology Director of Stores and Information Management at Woolworths Group, emphasised the impact Last Yard has had on their operational transformation. He said, "Our partnership with Last Yard has enabled us to accelerate our digital transformation at the shelf edge across the Woolworths Group. Through the deployment of the Last Yard platform, we have enabled a consistent experience for our customers and delivered an improved team experience."

Relationships between the Woolworths Group and Last Yard commenced back in 2001, with the primary focus on optimizing the efficiency of paper ticketing across the retailer's network. Last Yard has since been involved in numerous vital projects, such as the retailer's transition to cloud computing for ticketing, adoption of software as a service solutions, deployment of a single platform for executing marketing and merchandise strategy across all stores, and ticketing-focused technology integration.

Presently, Last Yard is instrumental in managing 15 million-plus tickets weekly across all Woolworths Group's stores - spanning Australia and New Zealand. The essential rules for ticketing across 400 different variables have been established, ensuring an improvement in customer experience while reducing non-compliance risks.

Last Yard has played a significant role in Woolworths Group's shift from paper ticketing to an integrated, omnichannel, Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) ticketing rollout. The retailer's commitment to customer satisfaction is enhanced by ensuring integrity between the store shelf and Point-of-Sale terminals, which unlocks new customer engagement opportunities.

In conclusion, Stoyles said, "Last Yard is helping Woolworths Group, Australia's largest employer, to increase the speed to market for new customer engagement initiatives while mitigating the risk of data fragmentation across its wide range of systems [...] Last Yard provides a highly secure, single-source of truth for Woolworths Group across its customer touchpoint network, allowing the company to meet the continuously evolving needs of its team and customers' expectations."