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Ace Hardware expands mobile offerings to three more stores

After a successful test of Aisle411's mobile coupon and voice recognition customer assistance platform, Ace Hardware is expanding the service into three additional stores.

The service will launch in Highland, IL, Centralia, IL, and Town and Country, MO, making a total of four Ace Hardware stores using Aisle411. In addition to the voice recognition services, Aisle411 offers coupons and other money-saving offers via text message that can be used immediately in the store.
 
?Ace was pleased with the seamless roll-out of Aisle411 from a technical standpoint, and we showed Ace that our proprietary technology is easily scaled throughout their other locations,? said Nathan Pettyjohn, cofounder/CEO of Aisle411, St. Louis.

?Both Ace and Aisle411 are also interested in gaining customer feedback from various locations that make up different demographic sets of customers,? he said.

Aisle411 is a mobile marketing technology company that provides voice services via mobile devices to help shoppers find product locations in stores quickly by using just their mobile phones. 

Along with the product-locating services and same-day mobile coupons, Aisle411 provides coupons dated for the following week to encourage consumers to return to the retail location.

In December of last year, Bryles Research surveyed shoppers for Aisle411.

The consumers all owned mobile devices and 88.8 percent of them said hardware stores would benefit from the service, while 88.3 percent said the service would be useful at larger retail locations.

The first Ace Hardware store launched the Aisle411 service in August (see story).

Shoppers call 1-877-AISLE411 toll free and state their location and the store, ask for the item then receive the location of the product over the phone and by text within seconds.

Price Cutter also began using Aisle 411's mobile technology in one of its stores to offer shoppers more convenience through coupons on the go and voice-recognition customer assistance.

Price Cutter is a Springfield, MO based supermarket with stores under various banners including Ramey, Price Cutter, Price Cutter Plus and Smitty. The supermarket is currently offering another SMS alert program using another service provider at two different Price Cutter locations (see story).

Mr. Pettyjohn said Aisle411 can get shopper frequency metrics from its service with Ace and Price Cutter.

?Our hope is to analyze the quantitative usage statistics over at least a 90 day period within each store,? Mr. Pettyjohn said. ?From a qualitative analysis, our system is consistently helping customers locate items within the store. 

?Customers consistently give feedback that they love the Aisle411 feature that sends them a list of product locations via text message, organizes them by the most efficient trip within the store and includes a mobile coupon,? he said.