Info about Groceries Online
How to be a Successful Online Grocer
The online grocery and food market is growing rapidly and providing new opportunities for companies that produce consumer goods to engage their customers and increase their sales as well as developing category strategies. So far only a very few companies have fully trusted these online channels.
For a lot of people the online space is an idea the remains on the edge of traditional marketing activities. It is considered by them to be more of an after thought than just another component of their entire strategy. However, it is becoming more and more necessary for online marketing to be at the heart of marketing strategies. It follows principles used for in-store marketing while it acknowledges the difference between the physical world and the online world. The very same strategies should be used for online and in-store marketing.
We know from the retail grocery stores that any successful marketing strategy is guided from the perspective of the customer. You can only target products and send effective marketing messages if you understand the journey of the shopper along the path to the purchase and what influences them along their journey. The approach to developing a good online strategy should follow the same principles. Just as in the real world, the shopper’s profile must be understood, the things that influence the shopper’s mind set, and what marketing initiatives can be used to help interrupt the shopper on his journey.
However, marketers have to understand that there are some differences in the online world and the real world. It is often underestimated how different the online world and the physical world can be when it involves influences on the behavior of shoppers. This includes the influence of the shopper’s thinking and the marketers ability to keep people engaged at the point of sale.
In the online world shopper profiling includes new components that can help explain the differences in people’s behavior when they shop online or in the store.
Customer profiling is the start of promoting any products that are being marketed. The lifestyle, lifestage, and socio-demographic characteristics are just as important online as they are in the physical world. However, the virtual world needs a more in depth analysis of these characteristics as well as more dimensions that need to be considered. Some examples include the shopper’s technology abilities, the access to high speed internet, and the modes of transporting the goods. These basic factors actually determine if a customer even has the ability to use the online shopping site. They also help us see the different behavior in in-store and online shopping behaviors like impulsive purchases and purchasing in bulk.
Younger people are most often more likely to shop online than an older person. Even if they both shop online there are differences in their shopping behaviors. The older person has been conditioned by years of shopping in the store and they will not be as comfortable with technology. The younger shopper has been accustomed to technology use their entire life so they have no attachments to shopping in the store.
The two shoppers might act in similar ways in the store but their online shopping differs greatly. This is the kind of information that is needed to successfully market groceries over the internet.