Food retailer ICA Sweden is testing its own ecommerce platform

ICA Gruppen, one of the leading retail companies in Scandinavia, is testing its own ecommerce platform. The company has several online stores running in Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but they all run on different ecommerce platforms. The newly designed platform is now being tested in four ICA branded stores.

In February of this year we already wrote that ICA Sweden was making advanced plans of opening an online store later this year. The newly designed in-house ecommerce platform is now being tested in ICA Nära Boxholm, ICA Nära Fornåsa, ICA Nära Tjällmo (all convenience-type stores for daily retail needs) and ICA Supermarket Åtvidaberg, as the company writes in an official press release.

Of course, the several online stores will all feature different products, based on what each ICA store is offering. But that’s also why the ecommerce platform needs to be flexible and easy scalable. “The online shopping experience offered by the stores will vary depending on the store’s product range and the ICA retailers themselves will choose whether to offer home delivery or in-store collection.” The ICA branded online stores will probably also have their own prices, as the corporate group wants to persuade its supermarket customers to shift to online shopping.

“We have developed an online shopping solution which is simple and inspirational. But we can’t develop it further without help from customers and ICA retailers. We have long experience of developing business together with our customers in Östergötland, among other things we tested the ICA Card and Personal Offers here,” says Anders Svensson, CEO of ICA Sweden.

ICA AB was founded in 1938 and is the largest retail company in the Nordics. Most of its operations are based in Scandinavia, but its wholly owned subsidiary Rimi Baltic operates stores and supermarkets across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. ICA AB also owns ICA Real Estate and ICA Bank.