Local Express, an artificial intelligence-native unified commerce platform, highlighted its comprehensive technology solutions for grocery retailers during Grocery Shop in Las Vegas, emphasizing how the company has evolved from serving small-format stores to providing enterprise-level capabilities for retailers of all sizes.
Maria Gallegos, chief marketing officer for Glendale, California-based Local Express, said the company is working to educate retailers about the platform’s broad capabilities and its ability to integrate with existing technology systems. 
“We’re really trying to let retailers understand the vast breadth of what the product is capable of with Local Express,” Gallegos said.
Local Express was founded eight years ago to serve small-format retailers such as butcher shops and bakeries that lacked technology solutions for growth.
“Those retailers were really left out of the market in terms of a solution to grow,” Gallegos said.
The company has since expanded its offerings to include marketing support, merchandising technology, click-and-collect capabilities and operational support.
According to the company’s website, Local Express provides an AI-powered unified platform that enables food retailers to manage e-commerce operations, synchronize inventory with point-of-sale systems, offer flexible delivery and pickup options and access marketing tools. The platform includes fully branded mobile apps, websites and self-service kiosk solutions.
One of the platform’s key features is its ability to help retailers without existing technology infrastructure quickly create and syndicate product catalogs across multiple marketplaces.
“One of the signature things that they do as a result of that is enable these retailers, who really don’t have any technology or product catalog behind them, to quickly build a catalog and get it live and actually get it syndicated across many marketplaces,” Gallegos said.
The platform now serves as what Gallegos described as a comprehensive unified commerce solution that can work with any retailer’s existing technology infrastructure.
Gallegos acknowledged that many grocers face challenges with fragmented technology systems accumulated over decades, which can create reluctance to adopt new solutions.
“Over the years – the 1980s, ‘90s, 2000s – you find a point-of-sale system, you stick to it, and then loyalty came along, and then web and digital came along, and pricing,” Gallegos said. “And now most grocers, I can’t think of anyone I’ve talked to who has not had such a fragmented technology stack.”
She said these fragmented systems often lead to paralysis when retailers consider new technology investments, with concerns about integration, IT support and ease of implementation.
“These are things that Local Express has really solved,” Gallegos said.
The platform integrates with industry-leading POS, CRM, loyalty and retail media solutions, according to the company. Local Express serves hundreds of grocery and food retailers across the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
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