Story Filed: Monday, November 22, 1999 9:28 AM EST

BIERDE, Germany, Nov 22, 1999 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Their town no longer has its own supermarket, but residents of a rural German village now shop at a "virtual" store thanks to NCR Corporation and Edeka-Germany's leading grocer and one of Europe's largest cooperative retail groups.

After the last supermarket in Bierde closed six years ago, the village's nearly 400 citizens had no choice except to travel to another community for groceries. Then, last year, committed Bierdeners began talking with Edeka about how e-commerce could make shopping more convenient for residents.

"There was no supermarket in our community and it is difficult to get to the next village using public transportation," said Kurt Sohnemann, a Bierde resident who worked closely with Edeka on a new system for the village. "However, Edeka's Ordering and Information System, provided on the NCR kiosk, is a great way for us to order groceries. Even though many residents never used a computer before, they have found the new virtual store convenient and easy to navigate. It prompts shoppers every step of the way."

Working with Edeka and Bierde residents, NCR developed and installed a custom touch-screen kiosk solution in a public building that formerly housed the town's school. A few basic grocery items are stocked in the new "Nachbarschafsladen Bierde" -- or "Bierde Neighborhood Shop." However, with the new NCR kiosk, villagers can also browse virtual supermarket shelves, viewing pictures and descriptions of more than 2, 000 products before they place an order. The kiosk is linked to Edeka's Minden-Hannover Region grocery warehouse-a 20-minute drive from Bierde-where orders are filled. Once a day, a volunteer from the village delivers the groceries to Bierde's neighborhood shop.

In an age when technology and Internet innovations provide conveniences to more and more people each day, NCR is pioneering in self-service solutions, such as web kiosks and self-checkout systems, that help simplify the lives of consumers everywhere.

"With user-friendly NCR self-service solutions, retailers like Edeka Minden-Hannover position themselves for the future and build consumer loyalty by making it easier to shop," said Alberto Camuri, vice president of NCR's Retail Solutions Group for Europe, Middle East and Africa. "This is an excellent example of how NCR helps retailers use every transaction or interaction as an opportunity to build closer relationships with their customers."

According to Edeka, approximately 75 percent of all Bierde families have used the kiosk since it was installed late last year. The Bierdeners who order groceries with the new kiosk typically complete four to five transactions a month, ordering an average of 10 to 15 items at each purchase.

"The Bierde shopping kiosk solution demonstrates Edeka's commitment to provide convenience and value to all our shoppers, even those who don't live near a major commercial center," said Horst Kohrsc, general manager of Edeka Minden-Hannover. "Because of the success of this program in Bierde, we are examining opportunities to work with NCR to bring a similar solution to other communities."

Edeka and its independent partners have long been at the forefront of utilizing technology solutions to better serve consumers and improve operations. For example, the Edeka Zurheide store, in Bottrop-Kirchhellen, and the Edeka Hundrieser store, in Velbert, recently installed NCR's DecisioNet electronic shelf label (ESL) solution. DecisioNet is designed to provide shoppers with accurate, easy-to-read pricing information-showing both local currency and the Euro value-and to assure that the price scanned at checkout is identical to the price on the shelf.

About Edeka Group Germany's leading grocer, the Edeka Group is the country's third leading general retailer, and Europe's sixth largest general retail organization. A voluntary cooperative of independent grocery retailers, Edeka includes about 6,200 retail members and 12 Edeka wholesale companies. In 1998, Edeka Group revenue was 57.3 billion German Marks (U.S. $29.7 billion). More information about Edeka can be found in German on the Internet at www.edeka.de.

About NCR Corporation NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) is in the business of transforming transactions into relationships. NCR is a recognized world leader in data warehousing solutions, ATMs, point-of-sale systems, high performance scanners, and support services for retail, financial, telecommunications, airline and insurance markets. NCR's business solutions are built on the foundation of the company's long-established industry knowledge and consulting expertise, value-adding software, global customer support services, a complete line of consumable and media products, and world-leading hardware technology. More information about NCR and its products may be found on the World Wide Web at www.ncr.com .

NCR is a trademark of NCR Corporation. All brand and product names appearing in this release are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.

SOURCE NCR Corporation (C) 1999 PR Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.prnewswire.com

CONTACT:       Robert, Kelly, Kramer of NCR Corporation, 770-623-7215, or 

[email protected]; or John Walker of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, 770-431-6227, or [email protected]

WEB PAGE:      

http://www.edeka.de 





































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