[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the grocery industry across the world. While panic buying may have eased off lately, grocery retailers are continuing to fall behind the curve as far as order fulfillments are concerned with unprecedented blip in sales and almost near empty shelves for essential products.
The impact of the Coronavirus on Grocery Retail
As shoppers are flocking to e-commerce to fulfill their needs, we are witnessing a rapid increase in online shopping account registrations and mobile app downloads from the previous month. Overall, demand for retail delivery is now booming with Shopping app global downloads hitting 106 million during the week of March 29 and April 4, 2020, according to App Annie — that’s up 15% from the weekly average in January 2020.
With growing online footfalls, grocers’ systems and services have been pushed to their limits. From increasing shopper support calls, scaling database servers and website/app crashes, grocers are struggling to keep things intact. Even the grocers with robust e-commerce stores are challenged right from inventory management to supply chain disruption. This is impacting deliveries with extended delays becoming frequent.
Online shopping for groceries is still a relatively novel idea for the vast majority and forming habits takes time. According to a recent report released by Dalhousie University 9% of Canadians are now shopping for food online for the first time.
What can grocers do to tackle the ongoing situation?
To ensure grocers are able to support their shoppers and communities, its imperative for them to focus on the essentials: On-Demand fulfillment, communication, online and in-app customer experience and omnichannel strategy.
- On-Demand Fulfillment
In order to counter hoarding behaviour among shoppers, grocers will have to build robust inventory management to ensure that essential products are available to more members while better managing out-of-stocks. Grocery retailers can manage inventory by:
- Placing purchase limits on high-demand products in-store and online
- Building on-demand delivery engine and/or seamless integration with existing third-party delivery providers, and hence effectively communicating inventory and purchase limits
- Monitoring real-time inventory at store level and adjusting online accordingly
- Communication
Frequent and effective communication is essential to build trust among shoppers and empowering employees to keep your business running.
Grocers can update their shoppers about product availability by providing:
- Frequent updates to your product catalog (out-of-stocks, order limits) online, in-store and your connected third-party applications
- Notices and updates for your shoppers both in-store and online
- Direct notification of product availability, and alternative stores with available stock
- Using personalization tools to automatically help shoppers easily find the products they want and need and appropriate product substitutions, as needed
- Improving the experience
Based on an understanding of in-store consumer behavior and their perception, retailers can provide optimal, memorable experiences through intuitive UI/UX. The key objective of a mobile app during this pandemic is to provide shopping convenience and efficiency to users, therefore, here are the few important features that your grocery app requires:
- Intuitive UI/UX for effective navigation that’s simple, clean and easy to navigate
- Mobile Product Catalog for customers to browse through product catalogs
- Shopping Cart & Mobile Payment enabling checkout and pay on the go
- Store Locator enabling location of nearest grocery stores
- Sales Chatbot to simulate conversations with customers using artificial intelligence, in order to guide them through the buying process
- Push Notifications to keep your customers updated with the latest offers, discounts of stock added to your store
- Loyalty program to ensure customer stickiness and user engagement
- Personalized AI-powered 1:1 Experience
- Product recommendation and messaging based on dynamic segmentation
- Voice-based Ordering allowing customers to order efficiently
- AI powered Product discovery enabling discovery of preferred products
- Omnichannel Strategy
To provide customers memorable experiences across channels, grocery retailers need the right technology in place to streamline the entire customer journey from product pages to checkout to tax calculations to fulfillment on an e-commerce site or a mobile application.
To stay relevant in a world increasingly growing towards omnichannel commerce, grocers will have to augment their customer experience to align with consumer expectations.
The COVID-19 is the single most disruptive force ever to hit the grocery industry. Key lies in building resilience, reimagining the next normal, and embracing innovation cutting across all business levels. At TheApplabb, it is our endeavor to ensure business continuity for grocery retailers without the risk of exposure, by focusing on design solutions that provide grocery retailers with exceptional capabilities which leads to improved customer experience and brand loyalty.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]