SUMMARY
Although ecommerce is at boom, online groceries figures are still on the lower side
Today, digital influence has affected over 50% of offline grocery sales
Around 75% of online grocery shoppers are intact to the first grocery shop they tried online
Although buyers nowadays are relying much on ecommerce like online shopping, when it comes to online groceries then the figures are not the same. They are comparatively low.
No doubt online groceries shopping is increasing at a good rate. Still, trusting for groceries online is a bit difficult at times for the consumers and they rather prefer going to their trusted grocery stores. The ability to build deep relationships with the shoppers and the ability to meet critical and frequent needs that the traditional grocers had is something which remains to be dealt with when going online.
But as the digitalisation is spreading its roots, the grocers can take advantage of the shift by using the digital channels. Here are a few ways:
Shaping Newer Ways And Behaviors
While most grocery shoppers aren’t buying online yet, they are shopping online. Today, digital influence has affected over 50% of offline grocery sales.
Raj Subramanian, the founder of a Bengaluru based grocery tech startup Paisool, says, “It is that since food and groceries are direct consumption goods. It’s a very touchy business to be in.”
According to him, grocery is nothing but a distribution business. The only problem is that we’ve been used to generations of price-controlled food (through MRP). “For instance, Toor Dal is one of the most price-volatile, with fluctuations as high as 4 times — INR50 to INR200 per kg,” he added.
As the shift goes from offline to online, the grocers have ample ways to influence the buyers and their decisions by proving them with the appropriate tools and information.
The trick to winning over shoppers is to give them the features which enable the buyers to compare the prices.
Win The First Trial And Keep The Shoppers Intact
Here the AIDA Model of advertising seems to be reliable. It states that your advertisement needs to be creative and appealing enough to seek the ATTENTION of the buyers, build an INTEREST for the product, create a DESIRE and ultimately persuade the buyers to take ACTION and purchase the product.
In the same manner, if a grocer can manage to get the shoppers to try online offerings even once will gain a huge advantage in the race. A study shows that around 75% of online grocery shoppers are intact to the first grocery shop they tried online.
For a shift from making the potential customers to the loyal ones, as they begin to go online, grocers can respond to early signals based on customer’s search and YouTube interests, and proactively deliver trial offers and free cash back rewards or customised gifts to high-value audiences.
Here the sales promotion techniques and tactics can play a key role in getting more and more traffic to the site and thereby encourage more and more customers to try the online shopping experience.
Making Out More Convenient Ways
Online shopping comes with a high level of expectations from the consumer’s end. The want of friction-less, intuitive, and even one-click experiences is something that the buyers expect which is not exactly the case when it comes to online grocery shopping which is yet not at that level of convenience.
A recent study shares what 42% people who have shopped online say about the convenience factor of online groceries, they say that the experience saves them time versus shopping in a store, where they can easily and intuitively locate their favourite products, discover new ones, and compare brands and prices.
Those in-store cues aren’t being replicated in the online experience, where sorting through product pages and building baskets can feel time-consuming.
As the research moved on and people were asked about, the experiences changed, after shopping thrice for groceries, the review was quite positive and around 63% agreed upon the fact that online shopping saved them time which is a great jump of 21% more than the one time buyers.
In Conclusion
The need of the hour is a bit of change in the thought process wherein the grocers have to rethink about the ways in making the online process convenient enough to overpower the gap between online and in-store experiences and making everything starting from browsing till the delivery and the payment friction-less. Feedback can play a very vital role in knowing the pros and cons and thereby looking for the room for improvement.
So here one can very well make out that the grocery category is poised for radical change over the following years, as this industry, unlike others, follows the lead of other industries which have proved to be apt for the buyers who have become comfortable with shopping online.
No doubt that the online grocery industry is flourishing and will definitely achieve a much faster pace in the coming time where everything is going digital. Like the traditional grocers with the leverage of building strong relationships with the customers will be very well treated and considered in this online age too as the truly assistive shopping experiences are yet to come soon with the forward-thinking ideology.
