- Technology is changing the way people shop for everything, including groceries
- Studies show that the demand for online grocery shopping is currently underserved
- Competition is quickly growing for online grocery
One of the hottest topics today in grocery is online shopping, and for good reason. Retailers are increasingly hearing from those customers that are looking for the convenience that online shopping can bring. In addition, many national and regional chains are evaluating or entering the online shopping sector today. So what’s the real opportunity for retailers looking to get into online shopping? Let’s take a look at a recent study from BI Intelligence, which highlights the biggest e-commerce trends happening today in retail.
The following slides are from The Future of Retail: 2015 Report by Business Intelligence. Looking specifically and the grocery industry, here are the trends surrounding online shopping:
This chart shows that while all other retail categories have experienced sales growth in online sales, the grocery industry has remained flat.
Today, nearly all of grocery sales are offline (in-store).
Customers of all ages want to be able to shop online, especially customers who are from 21-49 years old, and are likely purchasing food for their entire family.
So what’s holding customers back from shopping online? They don’t have the option. Today, only about 5% of grocery retailers offer online shopping through a mobile app (the primary device used for internet access today).
The online shopper is different than the typical in-store shopper. Since they value convenience of shopping without going into the store, they purchase more items to receive that full benefit of convenience.
The online shopper uses the service frequently, as well, ordering around 2-3 times per month. This mirrors the shopping pattern of the typical in-store shopper.
Looking at monthly shopper total spending shows that online shoppers use the service to purchase more goods at that location, as opposed to shopping around at multiple retailers. They value the convenience of their time over shopping exclusively for price.
As you can see from these slides, the opportunity for online grocery is vast. The demand is there from customers, but most supermarkets don’t currently offer this service. If you want to tap into this customer segment that’s growing, along with being more profitable compared to the typical in-store shopper, now is the time to pursue an e-commerce solution. Competition for these customers will be arriving sooner rather than later, so it’s important to capture this market share early.
