Bologna, 27th January 2003 - Datalogic, a company traded on the Nuovo Mercato (New Economy) of the Borsa Italiana S.p.A. (Italian Stock Exchange), which designs and manufactures bar code reading systems and Nordiconad, a retail co-operative belonging to Conad (national association of retailers), with 350 Conad points of sales, announced the launch of the new "Spesa al Volo™" service, based on Datalogic's innovative CRM Shopevolution™ system, in the Conad points of sales in Bologna and Vercelli.
The new Nordiconad service "Spesa al Volo™", limited to the holders of the Conad card, changes the way of shopping. For the better, of course, making it faster, easier and more fun.
"Spesa al Volo™" is currently in a test phase in the Conad superstore of Vercelli and in one of the Conad supermarkets of Bologna - but it will soon be extended to other points of sales of the Nordiconad network, and during 2003, it could generate up to a maximum of 1% of Datalogic's yearly turnover.
With the "Spesa al Volo™" service, based on Datalogic's innovative Shopevolution™ scanning system, holders of the Conad card can read the bar codes directly while shopping by using a portable bar code reader. When the clients take the products from the shelves, they can constantly verify the price of the article purchased, any current promotions, the shopping total and promotional points, thus speeding up the subsequent payment and avoid the queues at the cashier.
Nordiconad, a co-operative society with headquarters in Modena and with a turnover in 2001 of Euro 847.837 million (+3.66% compared to the previous year), is one of the most important societies of the Italian distribution, present with 350 points of sales in Piemonte, Liguria, Valle d'Aosta, Emilia, Veneto and Lombardia.
Paolo Michelis, Nordiconad's Marketing and CRM Director states: "With "Spesa al Volo™" the development of our sales network to provide services for our customers continues. With this new tool, we satisfy the most pressing requests of our customers, that is reduce the moments of stress. Surely, one of the most stressing moments is the payment of the goods, because of tiresome waiting at the cashier. The tool will shortly also personalise offers and make the first in-store one-to-one marketing initiatives, starting from our cluster of consumers: families with children aged between 0 to 11 years, purchasers of biological products and owners of cats and dogs."
"After less than a year from installation of the first Shopevolution™ system in Italy," adds Roberto Tunioli, Datalogic Vice Chairman and CEO, "the agreement with Nordiconad is confirmation of the validity of Shopevolution™ not only as a tool for increasing customer loyalty, but also as a marketing system for effective communication of one-to-one personalised offers within the store."
Datalogic, an Italian company based in Lippo di Calderara di Reno (Bologna), and manufacturer of the sophisticated Shopevolution™ self-scanning CRM solution, recorded in 2002 sales revenues equal to Euro 116 million, a growth of about 6% compared to the Euro 109.5 million recorded in the previous trading period.
Datalogic's Shopevolution™, adopted by Nordiconad for the innovative "Spesa al Volo™" service, is a sophisticated marketing system, based on self-scanning philosophy, that represents a state-of-the-art tool to develop and put into practise individual marketing programmes aimed at increasing customer loyalty and personalising the relationship with the consumer, in order to generate value for clients of the point of sales.
