With your employees, your customers, and your bottom line all demanding your attention, innovation may not always be on the top of the priority list. Sure, there’s no doubt you are strategizing how to best meet the needs of your customers, from operations to customer service, but here’s the elephant in the room that you may not be addressing:
The industry is changing and your competition is already adapting, are you keeping up?
Here are 3 ways shopping habits have changed, how the industry is innovating, and steps you can take to adapt to emerging trends.
#1: Plans Have Changed
Can you name a more iconic combination than shopping and the shopping list? Whether it is a scribble on a scrap paper or a fully categorized list of essentials, for decades “the list” has been the primary tool of your consumers and getting on that list has been pivotal to lasting success.
In an increasingly digital age, the traditional list is changing. Yes, shoppers are still using physical lists, but today’s consumer is much more likely to have a smartphone on them than a pen and paper. One study found that the typical cell phone user touches his or her phone 2,617 time every day with heavy users exceeding 5,400 touches. Even without reading the statistics there’s no doubt you are seeing it across your stores – Moms scrolling Facebook in the cereal aisle, millennials snapchatting a selfie in front of the live lobster tank, dads nervously sending photos to their spouses to make sure they are supposed to get baking powder and not baking soda.
How would it change your bottom line if even just a fraction of those touches included accessing your digital shopping list? That way you don’t need to hope you get ON the list, you can BE the list.
#2: The Market Has Changed
The emergence of home delivery, store pickup, mobile pay and checkout-free experiences have all affected the expectations of consumers in the market. With competition and options increasing and attention spans decreasing, it is more important than ever to create ways to anticipate your customer’s needs. It may come as a surprise to you, but the next generation of customers still wants to know that their local corner grocer cares about them.
Posting a weekly ad PDF to your website is no longer going to cut it in this ever-changing world. Connecting with shoppers in today’s age may not look how it did 30 years ago but don’t be fooled, digital connections are an absolute necessity in today’s competitive environment.
#3: Times Have Changed
Life seems to be moving faster than ever, if you’re feeling like there’s too much “to-do” still left on your list at the end of your business day, you can guarantee your customers are feeling the same. Face it, the “regularly scheduled shopping trip” is not how younger generations shop. Now, consumers are squeezing in quick trips in tight windows – on their commute home, in between other errands, always on the way to or from the next obligation.
Millennial moms are already actively trending towards using beacon-enabled shopping apps providing important reminders to take care of the grocery shopping when they leave the house, drive by a set destination, or during a set time of day.
In order to be the location of choice for their shopping needs, you have to be ready, available, and accessible whenever and wherever they are. Do your digital marketing features measure up to the other retailers your shoppers have access to? If not, what is holding you back from upgrading your digital suite?
Change is inevitable. But it doesn’t have to be scary. Webstop has helped over 3,000 stores upgrade their digital features to compete for today’s shoppers. How can we help you gain more shoppers?