{"id":27364,"date":"2016-11-10T13:28:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T21:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/content26.com\/?p=27364"},"modified":"2018-06-04T13:18:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T20:18:06","slug":"food-companies-look-capture-online-grocery-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/987654321.space\/c26_dev\/blog\/food-companies-look-capture-online-grocery-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Companies Look to Capture Online Grocery Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re in the midst of a digital grocery boom. And grocery executives are scrambling to keep their brands relevant to young, smartphone-loving shoppers.<\/p>\n

At last week\u2019s Online & Digital Grocery Summit<\/a> in Chicago, nearly 250 grocery executives met to discuss retailer strategies and learn from their forward-thinking peers at companies like Mondelez, Kellogg\u2019s, Nestle Waters North America, and others.<\/p>\n

Here are my top four takeaways for grocery brands developing online content and discoverability strategies for 2017:<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Category Growth Tied to Online Grocery Success<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Millennials are already shopping for groceries online and the trend will accelerate over the next few years<\/a>. This generational shift towards online grocery shopping is changing how consumers communicate with brands, noted Chris Butler, head of ecommerce for Nestle Waters North America.<\/p>\n

The industry is headed towards a time when, \u201cif you\u2019re a brand that doesn\u2019t have an ecommerce presence, that\u2019s an automatic 10% loss of sales,\u201d Butler notes.<\/p>\n

Oskar Kaszubski the ecommerce general manager at Mondelez, was equally blunt, saying: \u201cYou cannot grow your business right now if you don\u2019t invest in ecommerce.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to forfeiting online grocery sales, brands with no ecommerce strategy or online presence will also lose in-store sales. Wayne Duan, head of digital commerce merchandising at Walgreens, noted that every dollar spent online at Walgreens influences $11 spent in stores – a number will only continue to grow.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Discoverability: Grocery Brands Looking for Strategies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in-stock, but can\u2019t be found, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was one of the points made by Danny Silverman of Clavis Insights in \u201cWinning via Digital Shelf Optimization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silverman and other speakers recommended analytics tools to help brands optimize keywords, track pricing, and make decisions. My colleagues, Mark White and Preston Keaton, spoke about how online grocery brands can combine the pay-per-click options available with Amazon Marketing Services and search-optimized product page content to boost discoverability.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Retailers and Brands Partner on Content<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As a professional advocate for online content, I loved hearing brand and retailers rave about how focusing on improving \u00a0content provides a better shopping experience and increased revenue.<\/p>\n

Nestle Waters North America and the grocery retailer FreshDirect teamed up last holiday season to promote Perrier with landing pages and photo shoots.<\/p>\n

Jet.com launched a test case where they added +5 pictures as well as accurate product descriptions, product attributes, enhanced content, and proper keywords to several product pages. The improved content resulted in a 33% increase in revenue, said Jet.com VP of grocery Carmela Cugini.<\/p>\n

Charis Marquez the director of site merchandising at Sam\u2019s Club, creates content that generates excitement but is also useful and informative \u2013 such aspublishing a cheese-lovers guide to go alongside cheese products or offering online cake ordering.<\/p>\n

Nathan Mansperger, the director of ecommerce for AB InBev talked about their timely Super Bowl promotion of Minibar, an alcohol delivery service.While the promotion pushed Minibar traffic up, Mansperger said they\u2019re looking to \u201cdo things smaller.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Brands Need to Think Small, Nimble<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Indeed, several speakers echoed Mansperger\u2019s mantra of going small.<\/p>\n

Ben Zifkin, CEO of Hubba, talked about the rise of what he termed \u201ccraft brands.\u201d Ecommerce had enabled small brands to challenge established players.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig brands need to think small where they used to think big,\u201d Zifkin said.<\/p>\n

Kaszubski of Mondelez concurred. Consumer packaged goods companies need to become more agile, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose little startups aren\u2019t going to wait,\u201d Kaszubski noted. \u201cIn three months they can move two mountains that for us would take two years.\u201d<\/p>\n