Ocado, the world’s largest dedicated online grocery retailer with more than 675,000 active customers, has partnered with the Citrus digital advertising platform to better serve its suppliers and growing customer base in the UK.
Established in 2000 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in July 2010, Ocado is an online-only grocery retailer that aims to provide its customers with the best shopping experience in terms of service, range and price. As well as its success in the UK, Ocado is licensing its systems internationally, including to retailers in France, Canada and the United States.
Citrus, led by CEO Brad Moran, provides online retailers such as Ocado with a sponsored product and banner ad platform, capable of taking on Amazon in their attempt to disrupt the $120bn online advertising industry. The Citrus platform is designed to increase supplier product sales, monetise digital shelf space for retailers, while retaining a personalised customer experience. The 18-month-old company, which launched its platform in December last year, works with Tier 1 retailers in Australia and globally with customers in Europe, the United States, Latin America, and New Zealand.
Ocado is the first announced partnership from the Citrus UK office, which opened in March this year.
Citrus equips retailers with the technology to create a new revenue stream and monetise their digital real estate by allowing suppliers to compete in a live auction for prime product positioning and banner placements within the retailer website. At the same time, the self service ad platform gives suppliers of any size and budget the new ability to promote products and measure their success in real time mirroring the capabilities that has seen Amazon’s ad sales soar.
Ocado, Head of Grocery Merchandising and Product, Alice Mannion said the company had chosen Citrus because of the opportunities it presents for its smaller suppliers. “We aim to be the best place to launch new brands and are dedicated to helping our smaller suppliers grow. Citrus ticks all the boxes for us, it’s scalable, secure, easy to integrate and crucially delivers better optimised exposure for our smaller to medium sized brands”.
Citrus CEO Brad Moran said the company was looking forward to its partnership with Ocado. “We are proud to have an industry leader such as Ocado as our first partner in the UK, which is arguably the most sophisticated e-commerce market in the world,” he said.
“We are committed to partner with Ocado and look forward to our technology contributing to their success and growth by helping to monetise its online presence and further improve the customer experience they provide.”
