Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/691740
"W e want what we want, when we want it, in the way that's most convenient," is the modern rallying cry driving a transformation in retail. While 15 or even 10 years ago, popular wisdom contended that consumers wouldn't give up the tactile expec- tations of food shopping—seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting a product—to support e-commerce as a major channel, online plat- forms are now the norm in how shoppers discover, research, and purchase. Plenty has happened in the last decade or so to increase the appeal of online grocery shopping, including the efficiency that comes with high-speed internet, the ease that Google and other search engines bring to finding products, and the massive marketing that came with online giant Amazon's foray into food in 2008. And change continues rapidly, with numerous specialty sites popping up to focus on high-end gourmet items, region- al foods, natural and organic products, and niche categories like snacks. As e-commerce's impact on the way specialty food consumers shop continues to grow, several professionals from the retailing, manufacturing, and operational end of the industry gathered in Chicago in April for the Specialty Food Association's E-Commerce Strategy Forum, a day-long educational event. In the following pages, we cull some of the key e-commerce trends that speakers identified, as well as tactics and advice for those operating an e-commerce site or selling via one. TRENDS IN E-COMMERCE H ere are four things retailers and manufacturers need to understand about the state and future of the e-commerce channel: Many types of delivery models. Interest in online shopping is diffuse, said Mary Brett Whitfield, senior vice president of shopper insights for Kantar Retail. One-third of all shoppers whom Kantar surveyed are interested in each of a variety of models including home delivery, third- party platforms, in-store or curbside pick up (aka click and collect), offsite pick up, and services like Instacart, an on-demand grocery delivery platform that allows users to shop at a variety of their favorite stores. And interest is dramatically higher among the core millennial consumers, a strong indicator that online grocery shopping will grow significantly. Disruptors are being disrupted. Subscription meal services like Blue Apron and Plated have been heralded for aggregating ingredients for a recipe and delivering them to the customer's door. Two-and-a-half year-old Blue Apron simplified the shopping and procurement process to 45 minutes, considered a vast lifestyle improvement for time-pressed consumers. But, in September 2014 along came Gobble, a new service that's reduced the process to 10 minutes with recipes intended to be cooked in one pan. "Even disruptors are getting disrupted," said Whitfield."It's the nature of the digital environment today." Moving from subscription to prescription. Many consumers engage in e-commerce "subscriptions" where orders are set up to be delivered on a regular, recurring basis. Whitfield maintains that interaction will shift to better streamline routines. For instance, ePantry, a subscription service for natural cleaning and personal care products, offers a model that could be mimicked by food companies. The site takes consumers through an interview that enables them to prescribe a custom order based on their needs. Users are asked how often they clean, what their cleaning standards are, how many bathrooms they have, what is the makeup of the household (do toddlers or teenagers live there), and so on. The site then uses the input to build recommendations of which cleaning product regimen makes sense to that individual consumer. "It's a model that certainly can be applied to grocery shopping and meal preparation," noted Whitfield. A mobile, visual future. For most clients, 25 to 30 percent of their online traffic now comes from a mobile device, and that does not include tablets," said Tony Cox, founder of The 5th Food Group marketing consultancy. "If you don't have a mobile-friendly site, you are walking away from as much as a quarter of your potential demand," he noted. Social media platforms are also critical in driving consumers to a site, and new models are poised to play bigger roles. Gen Z (consumers born between 1995 and 2015) is entering adulthood and they are visually oriented. Platforms like Snapchat and Vine will be important components of a social media strategy.—D.P. SUMMER 2016 35