Off the Shelf: The Retail & CPG Blog

Compare this to my typical grocery store visit, which happens at least twice a week. I go in with a shopping list and broadly know the aisles I need to go. I have a few coupons from the Sunday newspaper.  I pick up items from the list, preferring the brands for which I have coupons. I pay attention to the calorie, fat, sugar and sodium content and opt for healthier option if the difference in price is not very high. In the last 1 year, I have seen that the store brands (private label) provide me much better value compared to the National brands and my shopping basket has more and more of the store brand items. Once I am ready to check out, I look for the cash register with the shortest queue. Many times, this is the self check-out counter. On checking out, I get a coupon for an item that the store is promoting. I end up throwing this away most of the time as it is not something I am interested in purchasing.

The difference is very stark; mainly because one is an online experience for a high value item compared to the other which is a brick & mortar experience for low priced grocery items. I am still intrigued by the Amazon experience and wonder what it will take for Grocers to provide such experience to shoppers. Will it be worthwhile for them to do this? Most of the grocery stores have tried to develop a competitive advantage by focusing on low cost leading to low prices, store locations or product features (breadth & depth of assortments, availability, quality, etc.). Some have also attempted to differentiate themselves by improving the in-store experience of the shopper by having better store layouts, shorter check-out times and offering services like Video
Rental, Bank, Bill payments, etc. I do not believe many have attempted to use end to end customer experience as a differentiation strategy.

What do I mean by end to end customer experience? It starts from the time the shopper start preparing for her shopping trip. She makes a grocery list, looks for coupons and specials, chooses the store she wants to go to, goes and shops at the store, makes product choices based on things important to her (health, lifestyle, convenience, brand, price, etc.).  I believe there is an opportunity for grocery stores to provide a unique customer experience across all stages
of this end to end shopping trip. What if the shopper has a tool to:

- Prepare the grocery list
- Provide her with the product alternatives for items on her list with value added information like nutrition facts
- Bring up the coupons and specials in her home store
- Provide the aisles / locations for the items on the grocery list
- Provide suggestions for additional items based on the grocery list (‘Most of the people who bought this salad mix also bought Kraft’s Ceaser Salad Dressing’)

This is just an example but my point is that it is possible to create a unique shopping experience for grocery shoppers in the brick & mortar world. I believe this will create a unique differentiation in the minds of shoppers who are looking for a better shopping experience in the grocery stores. This will create loyalty resulting in the Grocers ability to command higher prices leading to better profitability in the long run.