The First Real-Time Grocery Price Comparison App? Inside Grocery Dealz’ National Expansion | Spotlight Series

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Hello everyone, we are your co host for today's interview.

I am Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

And you know what, and grocery prices have been a major pain point for consumers for years now, especially especially of late it seems like.

So today we are bringing back two of our most popular guests from the past year, Matt Goins and Michael waldrop, the co CEOs of grocery deals, to hear what progress they've made in creating a new app that promises to help shoppers compare prices across grocery stores in real time.

Welcome back to Omnitalk gentlemen.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Well, we are excited to have both of you back.

You are, as Chris said, two of our audience's favorite guests and also Chris and myself.

But for those who might be meeting you for the very first time today on this podcast, Matt, maybe if you can give us a quick 60 second pitch.

What is Grocery Deals and why does it exist?

Grocery Deals is the first grocery price comparison shopping app for consumers and it's also a B2B SaaS platform for retailers and brands to engage users and try to influence and win the purchase decision before the final path to purchase is made.

So a great platform for both consumers and businesses to compete on more than just price.

You know, not only were you like one of our favorite guests from the past year, but you're also like our most talked about guests like our the consultants at A and M, I think even referenced you in our end of year show as a technology to watch.

So, so I want to talk about where, where what is the user experience like?

Like walk us through the user experience because now that you've been rolling the app out to many more states, it's now available in Minnesota.

I tried it out in advance of this podcast.

I compared Kraft macaroni and cheese at Walmart versus Target and Walmart came away the winner by 35 cents.

I couldn't believe that.

Like 35 cents on Kraft Macaroni and cheese.

That's a pretty sizable difference.

So take us through it.

Open up the app.

What am I looking at?

What happens next?

Right now we still have the continuous guest, so you don't have to create an account, but if you want to save your list, you can create an account and we'll save your list for another time.

So it's a pretty three step, easy, three step process.

First step is you choose your store, then you search your items and then you do, you know, some substitutions and then you compare and then when you're at the comparison screen, you can choose to either save your list or you can purchase with Instacart.

So the, the, the user experience is, is one that we really pride ourselves on, on because the technology can be very, very difficult, but also how the consumers see the app because there's so much technology in it can make things very difficult for a user.

And, and so we've made it where basically we push you through the app that we, we have.

You start with one store, do some substitutions and then continue to the comparison screen.

And then now that we are national and that we are in 40 states, that's humongous because I mean you can look at other, you know, states, you can look at yourself, I mean you, you know, your friends, your family in these 40 different states now can compare these grocery prices and you're right, you know, a percentage on the Mac and cheese like that.

I mean if you have 50 items in your cart, that adds up after a while, right?

That's significant savings.

If you think about that, that's just one item in my cart.

And the average grocery chip is far, far more extensive than that.

I'm curious Mike, does it work for all categories or is it mainly just center store items at this point?

Like what, where is it in that stage of development?

No, so we, we really tried to incorporate most of the categories.

I mean you can search anything from dairy to dog food to.

We, yeah, we even insert.

Because of the winter storm recently, we even inserted like fire, firewood and so all the categories.

We really try to get as many as we can in there.

Because if you go to, let's say you go to H E B.

Well H E B has you know, majority of just, you know, groceries.

But if you go to Walmart, that you can, you know, they don't just have the groceries, they have all kinds of other you know, non perishables there.

We pretty much have everything that's in grocery stores and everything from what Mike mentioned, but also alcohol, beer, wine, spirits in the states that allow that, and then even medicine and over the counter medicine.

And we were having a conversation with Goodr X and yeah, they have behind the counter pharmaceuticals, we have over the counter.

So all your Mucinex and Advil and Tylenol.

And I tell you, from a price standpoint, medicines and alcohol Bev seem to have the biggest fluctuations in savings and prices.

Prices.

So I would implore all users to add everything into your cart that you would normally get at the grocery store, including those items.

Right, right.

And I kid you not, I literally was on my GoodRx app 30 minutes before going on this podcast.

That's so random that you just, you just brought that up too.

But that's the idea here.

That's what you're going for.

Last question for me on this topic is, you know, how real time is the data.

So like, you know, how real time are we talking about in terms of me as a user, you know, going on the app, trying to survey the landscape for the prices on the products that I generally want to buy in a given week.

How real time is that?

We are in a transition period right now.

And the data that we are going, that we are currently moving into, as we speak, we are testing the data out that is live, real time, exactly what you see in the grocery stores.

And we just, we are able to put it in the app.

So Michael, tell us a little bit about how you're able to get that pricing data.

Because it's, it's hard to do what you just said, the real time data, is it.

Are you scraping their websites?

Are you partnering with the stores?

You mentioned, Instacart, Is it crowdsourcing?

Like, tell us a little bit about how this all comes together.

Maybe it's a combination of all of those things, but explain for the audience how you're getting that real time pricing.

Yeah, so we, we still do license it from a third party.

They, they ask just to remain anonymous just because they use that data for other things.

However that third party does it is data scraping.

They do, they are able to scrape it and then we're able to get basically a live feed of that data

so the retailers, they don't have to be like doing anything on their side to participate.

Is that accurate?

That is accurate.

Would we really like to have a direct API feed?

Of course we would, but however, we have created a way to be able to get that live data.

Right.

As you're looking at a retailer within the app.

So we really, as much as we would absolutely love to partner with them on that, you know, we can, we could potentially focus on bigger things like savings with them.

Right.

Which I think makes it even more important for our audience to be paying attention to this because retailers, whether you like it or not, this data is coming into the feed, it's being collected and it's important, especially when you get into some of the categories that Matt, you were just talking about when you get into over the counter medications, I even think diapers and formula and things like that that are necessities, that people are driven by cost and by what they can, what savings they can find.

So that, that makes a lot of sense and excited to see this move forward.

You know, with the live data that we're able to see, we're able to see live coupons and savings as well.

And that's really interesting.

Something that we're going to be implementing in very soon.

Right.

Which is a key reason why the retailers listening should be very cognizant of this discussion to decide if they want to play into that arena too in terms of giving their customers what they want from them day in and day out for those that choose to use it.

Yeah.

And we've had some interesting conversations with a lot of the retailers and we've discussed API feeds and getting, you know, FTPs of pricing data and discounts and coupons because we want them to put their best foot forward.

If we are claiming to be a price comparison app, we want the consumer to see the lowest possible price after everything's taken off member pricing, discounts, coupons, promotions, et cetera.

And what we found talking to these C level executives at the retailers is that they're like, hey, it is really complex in giving you API pricing catalog feeds.

There's a lot of different red tape to go through.

For now, we're good with using your data sources and we'll partner with you in other ways.

But you know, it's something that is on their roadmap, but it could be, you know, one to two years or, you know, even longer for some.

So yeah, it is, it has been interesting talking to the retailers about that.

Well, and Matt, you know, retailers, I guess I want to dive a little bit deeper into that if you don't mind, because they don't always want price transparency.

Like there's some hesitation there from time to time.

So what, what is, can you tell us a little bit more about what that relationship or what those conversations have been like with the retailers.

One, because they, they almost have to be aware of this and adopt and adopt this in some way, shape or form.

But how are you really working to like solidify that partnership?

Because it is really, you know, going to help them in the long run, I would think.

And that's part of the education that we're having to do.

And especially with us being the first and causing this big disruption, we have to really point out the positives of a solution like this and the fact that we, we actually did our own research study with a third party company and some of those data points are about to come out.

But what we found is 77 of Americans are already price comparison shopping.

They're just doing it a manual way, pulling up, right.

Multiple browsers or going in multiple stores.

We're automating that.

And then with, you know, chat, GPT and everything else, the transparency is coming.

So it is funny talking to, I would say outsiders or people in the peripheral of the retailer space.

They all say the same thing, is the retailers are going to hate this.

But the retailers we've talked to, Heb, Albertsons, Kroger, you know, plenty of the other brands, grocery outlet, great example, they see the value in it, they see the positive and they've been watching it for a long time.

They're like, we've absolutely been keeping our eyes on this.

So they're starting to put the strategies together.

And I believe it was Jeff Malmad from the CPG guys that said, hey, if you're not putting a strategy together for price transparency, if you're a retailer and CPG brand, you're behind the eight ball.

So yeah, it's actually been really positive and we're starting to move forward with some so big partnerships on that side.

You're here to that.

I echo that sentiment 100%.

So you know, the other thing, you mentioned it briefly, but I think it's important in the conversation or in the context of what Ann was asking you too is, is the Instacart relationship, you recently signed a partnership with Instacart.

How does that play into everything in terms of what you're trying to do?

Like, and what was the background on why you guys decided to do that,

how it plays out?

Because this is the first time that consumers are able to price compare and then get those groceries or those products delivered to their house.

You know, and that's, that's, that's a, that's a real benefit for them.

That's something that they can feel they touch, see, eat.

And, and it's not just like a, a piece of software that you're just comparing prices, that's those items are actually being delivered.

So now, you know, especially whenever we, you know, we start implementing this new, this new data, um, we're gonna see some really amazing, you know, situations where people think to themselves, well, you know, Instacart is this amount, but maybe I can save, you know, or like I'm still saving a little bit of money.

I, I know I'm spending a little bit on the delivery, but I am price aware and I can kind of use that a little bit for the convenience factor because that's what, that's what everybody wants.

They want great prices with a convenience factor.

And so that's what that's.

And with our national expansion, we do intend to see that pick up quite a bit.

Yeah, yeah.

So what I'm taking from that is that the marketplace availability of what Instacart allows gives the consumer using this app the better access to get the convenience they want from whatever retailers or grocers they want they choose to shop at.

We're not trying to change consumers shopping behaviors.

So for those who like to shop with Instacart, we're just making it easier and we're letting them continue that process.

Moving them into the Instacart app, moving their full shopping list over forum so they don't have to re enter it.

So we just say like start with us, compare first and then continue our normal shopping behaviors.

And you know, all obviously e commerce growth is going through the roof.

Fastest growing category in grocery, but still 75, 80% of people going in store and that's fine too.

We're not trying to disrupt or change consumer behavior.

We're just trying to fit in within their normal path to purchase.

Yeah, and that's a great point too, Matt.

I mean last month e grocery penetration was 19%, which was like a stop me in the tracks number when I saw that.

So.

So yeah, and there's.

And a good portion of that is still going through Instacart, so.

All right, well, let's put you both on the spot here.

And Matt, I'm curious, you know, how do you make money like free apps?

They're great for consumers, but generally they can be tough for businesses.

So how do you actually make money here but not just for yourselves?

I want to know how you make money for yourselves, but also for your brand and your retail partners going forward or how you're thinking about doing that.

So to Answer the first part, how do we make money?

Well, we have a pretty diversified revenue monetization plan for the company.

So part of that is through affiliate marketing commissions.

So sending the users into the retailers or Instacart to make a purchase.

So we are playing within that where a traffic driver for these retailers.

We're sending very qualified, I call them hand raisers to their site or app because they've come into the app, they've spent the time to build a list compare and then they chose that specific retailer to buy with.

So whether it's a new user returning or it's an increased basket size, we're sending them into the retailer's app or into Instacart to purchase.

And then we also built the Retail Media Marketplace which is our version of the retail media network.

And it's an area where CPG brands can advertise as the shopping list is being built and they can promote specific items.

So if something's on sale or maybe a top performing product or maybe a bottom performing product that they want extra lift for, they can feature it in our featured item section.

And what we've seen from that is massive adoption.

I mean it's right next to the shopping list list as it's being created.

And some of our test CPG partners that have been in there for our beta, I've seen great results.

We're talking about about one in four users actually adding a featured items from that list into their shopping cart.

Wow.

And then they do it another like four times on average in a 60 day period.

So the frequencies being increased, we're getting new adoption from new users, but then also higher frequency from existing users.

And you know, the same with the retailers seeing great results with them.

So yeah, that's, those are kind of the two main functions and we also do license our comparison engine.

So for the real forward thinking retailers, and we've been talking to one, we can't say who, but we can license our comparison engine and data in like an API widget form that they can include on their own property.

So their O and O website or app.

And you know, I spent time at Expedia and this is what the travel industry evolved into is brands saying hey, we have nothing to hide, we're going to go ahead and show our competitor prices alongside ours.

And so that, that is something that they can license from us as well.

Yeah, nothing to hide because you can't hide from it in the eventuality that it will happen too.

To your point that you guys made earlier.

So you know, on that on that line of thinking.

Matt, what, what can you tell us about actual consumer adoption so far?

Are there any metrics you can share with our audience?

We've had some great adoption in Texas.

Texas was essentially our beta got a lot of learnings and because of that, it's spawned us to roll out nationally.

We had been getting, you know, a massive wait list of people that were upset because they couldn't start using it in other states.

So we are live nationally and that is because of the results of the Texas test.

But we're also seeing really good time spent in app.

We're seeing a little over four and a half minutes time spent in app and that is an interesting metric because most apps would say the more time spent and the more time spent engaging with my products and store, the better for us.

Not necessarily the case.

Prior to our beta test, it was about 18 minutes and we were getting a lot of frustration from the users and they were getting hung up in the substitution process and a bottleneck there that even I think Ann mentioned on the very first podcast.

Now that we, we took that to heart and we are on, you know, version 2.0.

We've gotten it down to where we want to get you to the end results of who is the cheapest as fast as possible.

And four and a half minutes is kind of like a just right in terms of the temperature of the porridge, if you get my reference.

So, yeah, we've seen great time spent in app.

We've seen amazing engagement with the featured items.

So we're getting those users using them over and over again.

And overall, great feedback from our consumers.

So we're really looking forward to this national expansion.

Lighting a fire and kind of throwing gasoline on that fire.

In terms of growth at users, I'm

very excited and I have to say that, yes, you have taken feedback and you guys have very quickly turned that around into version 2.0.

I want to know what's next.

Michael, you're in 40 states.

You are rolling.

You know, you're continuing to make updates.

We have version 2.0.

What's, what's ahead?

When can we expect the next version?

What should we be getting excited about?

The next version is currently being worked on as we speak.

We will continue to market with all the new states.

We are actively engaging with our development team to include coupons in there and savings as much as we can within the app.

And we're just going to continue to educate.

That's a one big huge part of what we're doing is this Is this is a brand new business model for the most part, you know, that we're really trying to reach the masses.

So we'll continue to educate CPG companies, retailers, consumers on it and we'll just get it out as much as we can to bring more users and businesses into the app.

So to that point, I want to get you guys out here on this because whenever I hear the word education, sometimes the hair on the back of my neck stands up a little bit and goes, okay, wait, what are we talking about here?

Because, you know, like you both said, most people still shop in physical stores weekly.

So.

So my last question for you and Matt, if you want to take this one, is price comparison enough to change consumer behavior or do you need people to fundamentally shop, fundamentally shop differently?

For the grocery deals concept to work at scale, how do you think about that dichotomy or that question?

I go back to the data and I look at other industries and I've seen how comparison shopping has changed those shopping habits of the consumer.

Or travel is now almost all comparison shopping and gas prices with gas buddy.

And you even said yourself goodrx, what that's done for pharmaceutical industry.

So I absolutely believe comparison shopping is strong enough to change consumer behaviors.

And as I mentioned earlier, we're not trying to make a cataclysmic change.

It's just a minor change of, hey, start with us.

Spend your first four and a half minutes figuring out where you're going to shop to really save yourself a lot of money and time.

But then educating consumers too on how much savings you can make.

I mean, as you mentioned, with just 39 cents or whatever you said on the Kraft Mac and cheese, I mean, we're seeing for average families of, for weekly shopping trips of upwards of $60 plus savings, getting the exact same items just by switching stores.

So yeah, coupons are great.

We want to get those included in the app.

But you know, the data says, hey, people already comparison shopping.

This change in consumer behaviors already happened probably years ago when grocery prices started going up with COVID and everything.

That's probably when it started.

Now we're just bringing out a solution that fits that consumer change.

Yeah, that's a utility bill right there.

You know, on a, on a month, you know, that's, that's, that's huge savings for the average consumer.

And I think I agree with you too, Matt, because you know, at the end of the day, economics shows that things tend to gravitate towards the lowest price.

So if you're giving people that transparency and You've said all the industries before that have come before they've gone this direction.

I think that's, that's a good testament to why that axiom exists.

Michael, last word.

People spend, you know, as much as a plane ticket on their groceries a week, as much as, you know, hotels, you know, and so, and my thought is they compare shop for that.

Why wouldn't you compare shop for something that's equally as priced?

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

And, and especially when you start talking about expanding this to other necessity categories, too, beyond just your groceries.

And you can start throwing, throwing those diapers and formula and other things in there, too.

You guys, so excited about the progress that you've made in such a short amount of time.

I mean, really, really impressive work, both of you.

We know you've been heads down on this.

So, so excited to see this come to life in, in all 40 states now and continue to grow.

If people are listening and they want to know more, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Best way is to go to the website.

It's www.grocerydealswithaz.com.

and both Mike and I were both the Co founders, co CEOs.

Both of our contact information's on there so you can get a hold of us directly.

All right, well, that wraps us up for today.

Thank you to the gentleman from Grocery Deals for enlightening us on their progress as they roll out nationally and try to bring price to transparency to the US national marketplace.

Today's podcast was, of course, produced with the help of Ellis Seward.

And as always, on behalf of all of us here at Omnitock Retail, be careful out there.

Sam.