Grocery products are an up-and-coming ecommerce category with online sales predicted to grow at a compound annual rate of 21.1% in coming years. One-quarter of respondents in a recent Nielsen report already order online grocery products for home delivery, and more than half (55%) expect to use it in the future.
If you think that means there’s a mature grocery ecommerce strategy that all brands follow, you’re wrong. We’ve found that grocery brands are only recently turning their attention to ecommerce, well behind other consumer goods like clothing and electronics.
Is your product page content ready for this growth in online grocery shopping? Find out where your digital content falls and what you need to do to optimize your online grocery strategy.
No Online Grocery Content: Behind the Game
If your products are currently not listed on major online retail sites, you’ve fallen behind. We’ve been working with leading food brands on multichannel content strategies since 2012; today, numerous brands boast robust product pages that include recipes and other interactive content.
What to Do:
Online groceries are the next big thing in ecommerce. Don’t miss out. Contact Amazon, Target, and Walmart to find out what it takes to be listed on their site.
- Think big. Treat ecommerce as an integral part of your customers’ buying journey.
- Plan for content. A successful product page has all of the information a shopper needs to decide if your product is right for them.
- Don’t ignore Amazon. While Safeway might be your most important sales channel, you should have a specific online grocery strategy that addresses Amazon’s specific content requirements as well as the retailers’ pay-per-click services.
Adequate Content: A Good Foundation
This product page for Black Forest Gummy Bears offers consumers the bare minimum of information. There’s only one product image and it’s not enlargeable. There is no enhanced content, and the basic content includes nothing about the product’s ingredients, nutritional facts, or information about the company.
Sound familiar? Here are some additional signs that you could improve your online grocery strategy:
- Amazon only. While this limits the number of potential customers, at least you’ve got the most important online channel covered.
- Product assets not compelling. You lack more than a single image per product, and it’s not high resolution.
- Bare-minimum content. Product titles, descriptions, and bullets for top retailers are very basic, and may include spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors.
- No enhanced content. Your product pages don’t include enhanced or A+ content.
What to Do:
Though shoppers may grab your products off the shelf in a brick and mortar store, inadequate content online will not guide shoppers to purchase your products on the digital shelf.
- Build a multichannel strategy. Creating enhanced content for products on Amazon requires an Amazon Vendor Central account. For most other major sites you’ll need a relationship with a syndicator such as Webcollage. It’s important to understand each retailer’s requirements to best utilize each platform.
- Take care of the basics. Make sure as many of your products as possible have multiple high-resolution images and excellent basic content. If a consumer can’t physically hold a product in their hand, they need to be able to see and understand the product from all angles digitally. Investing in excellent marketing assets is essential if you want good-looking product pages.
- Think strategically. If you want to compete online, creating enhanced content is an essential step. When setting your content budget, plan ahead for multichannel and multi-language content to ensure as many potential customers see your products as possible. Additionally, make sure you understand retailer fees and content production costs so you can create high-quality content at reasonable prices.
Good Content: Getting Optimized
Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese maximizes its basic content to give potential customers everything they need to know about the product. Multiple, high-resolution images let you to see the box from all angles and clearly read the text. The bullets and product information are concisely written and offer only useful information. There is no enhanced content, but the basic content has been utilized as effectively as possible.
Here are some indications that your online grocery strategy is pretty good:
- Omnichannel strategy. Your products are listed and have content on Amazon and Walmart
- Visually appealing. The pages have good assets, with 3 or more high resolution images per product, preferably including a lifestyle photo.
- Optimized product content. Product titles, descriptions, and bullets are clear and well written for all retailers.
- Started enhanced content. Your most important products have enhanced content.
What to do:
- Strengthen your basics. Make sure every product has basic content as strong as the Annie’s example above. Basic content usually can and should be improved. You have what it takes to create enhanced product pages, but you’d be happier with the results if you had even more high-resolution images like prepared food and lifestyle photos.
- Complete Enhanced Content for all pages. Investing in enhanced content increases sales both online and in physical stores.
- Think strategically. Optimize your basic and enhanced content for search to help improve SERP rankings within Amazon as well as on external search engines.
Great Content: A Dynamic Shopping Experience
Happy Belly Coffee has knocked this product page out of the park. Their basic content is stellar, with well-written and concise titles, bullets, and descriptions, and multiple high-resolution shots of the product.
The enhanced content doesn’t reuse any of the product imagery, offering a bevy of enticing pictures of the coffee in tandem with informative paragraphs about how it tastes, how it’s roasted, where it comes from, and how to prepare it. The page is visually appealing, tastefully branded, and full of useful information. A product comparison chart at the bottom of the page is included to direct customers to the specific type of coffee they might like best for effective cross selling.
Here are some signs that you’re offering a dynamic shopping experience:
- High quality assets with lifestyle photography. Your product pages have great assets, with 5 or more high-resolution images per product including lifestyle photos.
- SEO optimized product content. All product content is SEO-optimized, dynamic, consistent, and compelling. All products have exceptional basic content on all major online retailers in multiple languages worldwide.
- Enhanced content for all products. Enhanced content has been created for all product pages.
What to do:
- Get started with Amazon Marketing Services. Your pages have all the content they need to succeed. Targeted advertising will help increase page clicks; your exceptional content will lead to added conversions.
The Takeaway:
Online grocery sales are the future of ecommerce.
