In order to meet the evolving eCommerce expectations of today’s savvy consumers, grocers must harness the power of data analytics to offer online experiences tailored to shoppers’ individual needs and preferences.
Research from PYMNTS’ recent study, The Tailored Shopping Experience: Meeting Consumers’ Online Expectations, created in collaboration with headless commerce system Elastic Path, revealed that 30% of online shoppers are “very” or “extremely” likely to prefer merchants that offer tailored online shopping experiences. Additionally, the study, which is based on an early spring survey of a census-balanced panel of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, found that this share increased to 43% for millennials.
Related news: New Data Shows Need for Online Merchants to Upgrade Personal Shopping
For online grocers, offering tailored experiences can be especially crucial, as many consumers are used to the personal touch they would get in the neighborhood stores they frequented multiple times a week for years on end.
“Loyalty programs can create the sense of recognition and engagement no different than if you walk in one of our stores where you’ve been shopping for 20 years, and we say, ‘Hey, Mrs. Jones, how are you?’” John Ross, president and CEO of the Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA), told PYMNTS in a December interview. “Digital technology does allow you to replicate a lot of the effects of high quality of service.”
See also: Supermarkets Rethink Physical and Digital Aisles for Grocery’s Connected Future
One of the key ways that grocers can use data to personalize the online shopping experience is by surfacing items that consumers actually want, including both previously purchased items and tailored suggestions informed by those previous purchases.
“[There’s now] the expectations that your online grocer understands you, the expectation that they save you time, the expectation that the next time you come there, they’re able to really offer you a better reflection of what you need, as opposed to the same patterns that you would see in a physical grocery store,” Alex Weinstein, chief digital officer at online grocer Hungryroot, told PYMNTS in an interview earlier this year. “If in 2020 the typical purchasing pattern was going to your online grocery destination and pressing the reorder button, today consumers want more. They want variety. They want recommendations.”
Read more: eGrocery Customers Expect More Than Digital Shelves; They Expect Personal Relationships
In late March, ultrafast online grocer Jokr announced a new, more personalized app with individualized suggestions and content. In December, Kroger, the United States’ leading pure-play grocer, shared on an earnings call that it is leveraging data to offer personalized deals and discounts to secure consumers’ loyalty at a time of widespread price anxiety.
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More here: Kroger Leverages Personalization to Win Share of Food Spend From Restaurants Amid Rising Prices
In fact, research from PYMNTS’ study Decoding Customer Affinity: The Customer Loyalty to Merchants Survey 2022, created in collaboration with Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, which drew from the results of a late fall survey of a census-balanced panel of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, found that 52% of shoppers say that promotions and discounts would improve their loyalty to grocers.
Get the full report: Decoding Consumer Affinity: The Customer Loyalty To Merchants Survey 2022
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