Extending legendary hospitality services into the digital realm

Cracker Barrel had multiple digital points of entry for its guests — separate websites for brand and locations information, catering, retail, and two mobile apps, resulting in fragmented customer journeys. For a streamlined experience, the business examined the growing need to push hospitality beyond the walls of its stores to where people were in their daily lives. It had to consider the digital arena as a new form of hospitality that, through convenience and personalization, could deliver the same results as in-store dining and shopping.

To achieve this, Cracker Barrel had to grapple with creating a unified feel for web, mobile web, and mobile applications. The plan was to enable guests to seamlessly access to-go food, catering, and retail with a single mixed cart, account, and payment. Useful in-store encounters with Cracker Barrel’s digital experience were also important to help meet convenience expectations of today’s consumers.

Cracker Barrel developed a single experience powered by headless Sitecore Experience Commerce® on Sitecore Managed Cloud for web, mobile web, and app. It combined Cracker Barrel’s brand site, third-party online food ordering site, third-party catering ordering site, retail shopping site, and mobile app.

Cracker Barrel’s new Digital Store enables guests to order take-out food, cater an event, and shop unique retail items using a single cart, account, and payment for in-store pickup, curbside, or delivery. Like in a store, guests can pair food and retail online. The experience extends into physical stores as well—patrons can join a waitlist, pay in-store dining checks to eliminate checkout time, and check-in curbside for their to-go order. Cracker Barrel has been able to offer personalization, encourage loyalty, and provide guests new forms of convenience and care both inside and outside the four walls of its stores.

Digital Store has provided a unified foundation for digital innovation powering Cracker Barrel’s roadmap into the future. Since its launch in October 2020, Cracker Barrel has witnessed increased engagement and financial results, when compared with fragmented experiences.

When compared with a pre-pandemic benchmark, online sessions at Cracker Barrel have increased 25.5% with a 36.2% growth in new web visitors and a 14.3% increase in return visitors. Digital purchases have grown 100.3% with a 59.5% improvement in customer conversion rate and an 8.2% increase in average order value. Overall, Digital Store has driven a 116.8% improvement in online revenue.

In the future, Cracker Barrel plans to leverage this foundational investment by increasing opportunities for personalization, building additional marketing automation and physical touchpoints into guest journeys, extending personalization into a new loyalty program for the brand, and by supporting the growth of other Cracker Barrel brands like Maple Street Biscuit Company and virtual brands like Chicken n’ Biscuits by Cracker Barrel.