It’s been long argued that grocers have a lot to learn from retailers when it comes to bringing their A game to grocery ecommerce. However, with the recent turn of events with the pandemic, grocers are at par with retailers when it comes to optimizing their omnichannel infrastructure to facilitate pleasant customer experiences. From recipe recommendations, personally curated shopping lists to substitution assistance, grocers have added multiple tech layers to not only ease online shopping for consumers but also maneuver the post pandemic supply chain and labor challenges efficiently.
Here is a look at 5 things retailers can learn from grocers to improve and optimize the omnichannel experience for their consumers:
1. Site optimization for mobile:
It is imperative to understand the differences between a mobile friendly site and a mobile optimized site. While a mobile friendly website accurately displays on smaller screens, a mobile optimized site reformats itself for mobile devices, making the site much easier to navigate. This reformatting includes content reformats, larger navigation buttons, image optimization according to screen size, all of which create a good user experience.
Since the mobile experience is much different from the computer experience, customers need to be able to read your web pages with ease, click links without zooming in, and navigate your site on a smaller screen. Without mobile optimization, they often struggle with all of these. Mobile optimization enables you to capitalize on customer experience and also increases the efficiency and return rate for first time users who are not necessarily app users or generally prefer online shopping on their phones vs. downloading and registering with multiple apps.
2. More personalization options in app and web:
According to Forrester, up to 36% of shoppers say retailers need to do more to offer more personalized experiences. While customization is often confused with personalization, there is adifference between the two. For example, when you go to Starbucks and order a latte with almond milk, and no sugar– that’s customization. But when the barista already knows what kind of coffee you like – that’s personalization. So personalization is a step beyond customization. Customization is all about the user making changes and choosing what they want in an app. Personalization is much more dynamic and happens seamlessly in real-time.
As humans we want to feel special and understood, creating a need and value for personalization. There are significant benefits to creating a personalized experience including higher user retention, better customer experience, more conversions and increased brand loyalty among others. Mobile app/site personalization takes care of the users, makes things more convenient, easier, and faster leading to more conversions and increased brand loyalty.
Lot of grocers today offer personalization with item recommendations based on past purchases, easy re-orders, recipe recommendations based on eating habits etc. Personalization in retail can include push notifications, recommendations, suggestions, tailored search results, tips, discounts, special offers, etc. All of it individualized and relevant to the user.
3. Reimagining the store design:
The past few years have been tumultuous for brick-and-mortar retail with supply chain issues, labor shortages, inflation and continuously growing competition from ecommerce. However, retailers have responded to these challenges by reimagining what the brick-and-mortar experience looks like for shoppers.
Many retailers are incorporating radio frequency identification (RFID) with smart barcodes to better track inventory items. Others have removed fixed register locations in favor of self-checkout etc. The most substantial change in physical formats, though, is the need to respond to customers’ desire to buy online and pick up in-store. Making ‘How do you optimize the space both as a showroom but also as the distribution hub and delivery station?’ the biggest question that retailers are trying to answer today. This entails designing a space with less shelf space in favor of a larger distribution center for online orders.
Retail designers now need to create spaces that motivate customers to shop in-person again. With fewer locations than before the pandemic, retailers can now be more purposeful with curating a positive customer experience. Which translates to smaller footprints, less clutter, and a more instinctive layout that enables customers to engage more with products and the overall brand experience—all while controlling costs in an inflationary environment. It will be about maintaining a digital presence consistent with the physical presence.
4. Delivery options:
As noted by search firm IDC, 59% of customers say they would shop elsewhere if retailers didn’t offer buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) options, while 49% would choose other retailers if curbside pickup wasn’t a choice. 41% regard a lack of same-day delivery as a deal-breaker. As a result, retailers need to offer customers dynamic pickup and delivery options that are flexible enough to meet their evolving needs in order to keep them happy and drive sustained sales. For example, offering various time slots for BOPIS or the option for scheduled delivery.
Whether customers choose BOPIS or delivery, efficiency of operations is critical to the profitability when fulfilling from stores. Grocery shopping carts are large and require substantial time to fulfill. Picking products well, resolving exceptions such as substitutions, out of stock and so on, take time and effort. Grocers have come to rely on a critical optimization of the process to keep fulfillment costs low enough to ensure profitability. With BOPIS and Ship-From-Store becoming more and more prevalent in retail, store fulfillment optimization went from a nice to have to a necessity.
Customers checking out an online grocery order expect store pickers to put themselves in their shoes when picking products. Nobody likes fruits and vegetables that are bruised. As a result, grocers have come to understand the importance of quality picking. Furthermore, when pickers call or meet online shoppers to discuss substitutions or explain fulfillment exceptions, they are ambassadors of the store. A bad experience with a rude picker can lead to the consumer never returning to the store. Retails deal less with repeat customers, but the situation is all the same. An order packed and shipped neatly is pleasing; and extra courtesy when handing over a BOPIS order ensures brand loyalty. With store foot-falls generally decreasing year over year, having ambassadors welcoming your customers is supremely important.
5. Assistance with out-of-stock items:
Unlike grocery, out of stock items in retail only sometimes have purpose driven substitutes. However, retailers can go a step beyond allowing customers to set up back in stock alerts. This includes providing an estimated timeline for when the product will be back in stock, or similar items that other customers shopped for, or a personalized list of recommendations based on purpose, taste and functionality.
There is nothing like the present moment to make a sale. An out-of-stock item is unavoidable, but an ecommerce solution providing endless-aisle to assist store associates can save a sale. Similar to grocery substitution, an endless aisle offers a way to fulfill the immediate need of your customer. Endless aisle exposes availability at other stores for an item locally out-of-stock, and replaces the conventional sale with an order on behalf of the customer. The customer will not leave the store with the product, but will have the satisfaction of having purchased it nevertheless.
All of these elements are focused on one main idea: providing an industry leading customer experience. Great customer experience helps you build trusting relationships with your customers. Competitors can try to copy your products and your prices, but they can’t copy the way your customers feel about your brand. A great experience creates brand ambassadors, and this is a sustainable advantage to have in retail or any other industry.
Frank Kouretas
As Chief Product Officer at Orckestra (powered by mdf commerce), Frank leads product strategy and product management, driving the next wave of commerce innovation and beautifully simple shopping experiences. Frank is passionate about building and marketing innovative technology products, and brings over 15 years of leadership experience in product development, product management and marketing. Prior to joining Orckestra, Frank was VP of Products and Marketing at Radialpoint where he led the development of innovative customer experience products used by some of the world’s leading service providers to support millions of customers.
Jean-Walter Guillery
As a director of product at Orckestra (powered by mdf commerce), Jean-Walter leads product teams responsible for innovative ecommerce solutions in the OMS and omnichannel commerce space, as well as DevOps and release automation. For the past 10 years, Jean-Walter has been passionately developing elegant and innovative ecommerce products and solutions, focusing on completeness, quality, usability and making sure users are fully satisfied.
