3 Main Factors That Will Shape Grocery Retail

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Grocery retail has seen four major shifts since the 1950s, starting with a focus on brand in the 1950s, moving to category in the 1970s, then the customer needs in the middle of 1990s, with the focus settling on giving the customer control that emerged in 2010. The shift to giving customer control began with the infamous Amazon Effect that disrupted the world of online retail.

This latest shift in the way customers purchase their grocery has upturned brands and grocery retailers, pitting them against sudden changes powered by the latest in technology and unpredictable socioeconomic conditions. In the new age, only grocers with the most adaptability and agility in the face of change can survive.

Let us explore some of the driving factors of grocery retail and how you can leverage them to improve your business:

Convenience is Top Priority

These days, customers are pressed for time. Amazon understands this well and uses this knowledge to build success in every category. Convenience happens to be a decisive factor in the highly competitive world of grocery retail. Even brick and mortar grocery retailers are turning to new in-store experience solutions such as mini-stores within a store (e.g.: meat and frozen foods, wine and specialty cheeses etc) and modular product displays, keeping in mind customer’s insistence on convenience.

Long check-out lines are a big turn-off for customers. Amazon has innovated and eliminated this inconvenience by introducing Amazon Go stores which are cashierless and run solely on technology. Walmart has introduced an option to pay from their app, easing the check-out process for customers. Your customers are looking for the simplest and fastest way to buy grocery products from you. Since most of the grocery shopping includes repeated products, you can easily provide better service by allowing your customers to repeat their orders, or increase sales by pushing out offers on their regular purchases.

Easy Discoverability

Artificial Intelligence(AI) can be leveraged to analyze customer data and insights, to help grocery retailers and CPG brands make shopping easier and more logical. As an example, product sections are now being organized around the needs of customers rather than solely based on brand merchandising. 

Grocery retailers and CPG brands working together to create singular themes under which they can market and sell affiliated and affinity products. For example, a theme such as “breakfast time” groups together products such as eggs, fruit juices, and loaves of bread, etc. This not only helps customers to discover new products easily but also helps retailers increase gross merchandise value (GMV) whether online or offline.

Omnichannel Experience

Persuasive in-store merchandising can entice store customers to go online or vice versa. For example, an offer on an in-store display of chips sends customers online for a free dip coupon. Likewise, an online offer on select dips sends customers into a brick and mortar store for nachos at a discounted price. These kinds of promotional offers not only bridge the gap between online and offline retail but also serve to deliver an omnichannel experience.  

Research conducted by Dunnhumby research found that 70% of an online shopping cart is populated with the usual products from an in-store spend of a customer. Utilizing customer intelligence such as this, you can drive profits up by making the shift from offline to online shopping smoother for your customers.

We’ve covered some of the current driving factors behind grocery retail. You can apply these concepts to improve your grocery retail. Remember that to become a successful online grocery retailer, you need to implement a structural shift at the very foundation of your retail existence. This applies across all parts of your business, from merchandising to displaying and selling products at your online or brick and mortar store. Using the latest technology such as AI to analyze customer data and gain useful insights could help boost your business like never before.

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While there is a lot of chatter around artificial intelligence and the potential it has to transform retail, it has the capability to impact the most fundamental shopping experiences: the grocery store. Most retailers are moving towards building a better grocery store experience, with the rise of subscription meal kits and competition from pure-play grocery delivery services. With the abundance of customer data and product information available, grocers today are in a special position to apply machine learning and AI in other areas of the business as well.

The grocery industry has a heavy reliance on the movement of perishable goods and with supermarkets struggling to plan, promote and sell goods in a short period of time, it is not efficient. Furthermore, there is a lot of food wastage that happens in this industry - while some of that waste happens in consumers’ homes, a good amount is also lost in the supply chain - anywhere between the farm and the store shelf. And with the various options for when, where and how to buy groceries, grocers compete on prices that are most likely to be profitable.

While grocers are faced with these challenges, they have a fairly good idea of their customer base, who they are and what they want to buy at what price point. With the data available, there is a lot of opportunities utilizing the data in the right manner. This is where AI comes in. Using machine learning capabilities and analytics, more grocers are leaning towards adopting this technology to strengthen the relationship with customers, as well as address some of the biggest challenges they are faced with today.

Leveraging the abundance of customer data

The grocery industry was one of the first industries to collect shopper buying data through programs such as loyalty programs and in-store promotional offers. These methods helped grocers gather information about their key shopper demographic as well as brand preferences. This information is already leveraged to provide discounts and special promotions, the new technology can help enhance the relationship between the grocer and shopper even further.

AI helps grocers to provide a deeper understanding of context and intent by answering the questions behind customers' shopping decisions. It also enables the grocers to parse the customer data and automate the ability to offer targeted promotions to each customer.

Enhanced inventory management

AI can change the entire way of managing inventory. AI can help stock shelves with the right mix of products and ensure that the supply chain is aligned to avoid out of stock products using point-of-sale information and inventory visibility.

Machine learning can build on grocers' rich customer data and combine that with contextual data such as weather, climate, holidays and events - providing a more accurate forecast compared to traditional methods.

Reducing waste

With better inventory management and data analytics, AI can provide better visibility on produce and perishables. Automation can help stores dynamically re-adjust orders based on demand or automate product promotions for the items that are not performing well or selling fast, and helping stores to protect margins, and reducing the amount of food that goes into landfills.

As AI and machine learning advances, grocers should begin to position their systems for a seamless transition towards a highly automated future.

AI must integrate into the commerce platforms and connect across systems to maximize its effectiveness throughout the business. While AI is a valuable tool for customer service, the impact of it will come through its ability to reward loyalty, understand consumer behavior, ensure reduced wastage and increase revenue for the retailers.