Q&A: Amazon director of grocery partnerships Russell Jones is branching into new territory with Morrisons

Amazon and Morrisons have been in partnership since 2018 but the service has now grown to include Morrisons’ loyalty scheme More Points, with Amazon also making other customer experience improvements, like allowing shoppers to reserve a delivery slot up-front for up to 60 minutes.

Iceland and the Co-op also operate on Amazon in the UK, with the ecommerce giant collaborating with 13 grocery partners in the US and five in Japan.

With plans to expand beyond the nine markets Amazon grocery already operates in, Jones speaks to Retail Week about growth, listening to customers and bringing loyalty to the forefront.

What prompted Amazon’s expansion of the partnership with Morrisons to include loyalty?

“In the last six to nine months, we’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what we can do to improve things and this has been one of the biggest things that customers have asked us for. They’re aware of the reward scheme, but if they choose to take advantage of the speed that Amazon offers, you get the same-day service and earn Morrison’s reward points. 

“Way back when we launched, it wasn’t something that was possible but Morrisons has since built improvements to its scheme. Customers have been saying [not having the reward scheme] is a reason they choose not to shop with us, so adding that ability to earn loyalty points has been important for us.”

What other features are you introducing?

“We’ve introduced a feature where customers can reserve a slot upfront for up to 60 minutes. It’s about listening to customers. Some customers say, ‘we don’t want to shop with you because we don’t want to build a whole basket and then for the slot we wanted to be gone by the time we check out’.

“On Amazon, you can order days in advance, but customers think of us as a same-day business, so it was a surprise to us that they had that nervousness about checking out. They said if Amazon allows them to just reserve a place to build our basket, then check out, they’ll be happy to shop with us.”

Morrisons on Amazon has recently expanded to Oxford. Are there any more locations in the UK that you’re looking to target with this partnership?

“It’s constantly under review. We’re constantly trying to figure out how we close the postcode gaps that we’ve got but there’s nothing specific to say now. However, we’re both really keen on the partnership and keen to connect to as many customers as possible.”

Amazon isn’t typically known for groceries. How do you ensure customers are aware they can shop with different grocers on Amazon?

“We advertise, we’re in search, we’re on socials and like many other parts of Amazon, we try and get our fair share of space on the gateway.

“I get what you mean; we’re not famous for the whole grocery basket shop. But a lot of people would come to us to buy many bulk, ambient grocery items. So it’s definitely something I spend a lot of time thinking about and working with all of our partners on how we educate customers.”

With different partnerships across different countries to manage, what does your day-to-day look like?

“I’m fortunate enough to work on this business for Amazon across the world, which sounds very grand. We’re live in nine countries and I spend a lot of my time with my teams making sure that our partners are happy and encouraging more partners to sign up.

“Then we think about the customer experience. Loyalty has been a recurring theme for customers in several countries, so what we’re doing here with Morrisons, we will look to do with other partners with significant loyalty schemes at the right time. 

“We try to take things that work and then share them around the world with different partners. Part of the trick is trying to find the things that work at scale across multiple partners, so we’re not always having to reinvent.”