Grocery retail reality: Omnichannel is here to stay

Grocery retail customers have flocked to e-commerce in droves over the past year. After such a challenging time, you want to  breathe a sigh of relief and think, “Isn’t it nice to see customers returning to stores?” Not so fast.

True, customers are coming back. But their behaviors and demands have been forever changed. Many customers are choosing to stick with the e-commerce options they counted on during a time of great uncertainty.

Now isn’t the time to give up on your online ordering options, on-demand delivery, and curbside pickup. There’s no going back: this is grocery retail today.

Nor will there ever be a time to stop supporting and improving your e-commerce experience. You’ve already poured so much effort and resources into it. Now and into the future, your customer experience – online, in-store, or a hybrid of the two – needs to be fast, convenient, and personalized.

Grocery retail: E-commerce gives customers speed & control

Speed has never been more important than in the past year. Customers, anxious about any amount of time spent in public, wanted to get in and out of your busy stores as quickly as possible.

E-commerce gives customers a greater amount of control over time spent browsing your online grocery store or mobile app, but only up to a point. It doesn’t matter how fast a customer’s fingers can tap if they can’t find the products they want.

Make checkout hassle-free 

Some brands make the mistake of conflating speed with convenience, but there’s more to a convenient customer experience than speed alone.

Long ago, many grocery retailers installed self-checkout lanes with speed in mind, only to realize that customers struggled with the checkouts’ cumbersome interfaces. The same could be true of your e-commerce experience.

How intuitive is your mobile store or app? And do they offer customers ready access to the products they love and frequently buy?

Grocery retail: The personal touch

E-commerce is naturally enticing to customers because it has the ability to be so deeply personalized. Never before have grocery retail leaders had the opportunity to place personalized promotions and discounts right in the palm of customers’ hands. (Clipped coupons don’t count.)

And remember – online grocery stores and mobile apps can offer excellent personalized experiences, but that experience can only go so far if it isn’t part of an overall omnichannel strategy.

Listen up & make it right

Grocery retailers are in a uniquely advantageous position because your customers will tell you exactly what they want.

In fact, many customers will readily tell your in-store staff what they think of their shopping experience, particularly if it isn’t meeting their expectations. Do you offer your e-commerce customers the same opportunity to provide feedback?

Today, customers are saying that they like online shopping because it saves them time, but they admit to missing the experience of looking at and touching your products in the store. Customers love when a friendly employee loads their pickup orders into their car. But they aren’t so happy when they look at their receipt and see that several out-of-stock items were refunded – and no replacement offered.

When customers purchase an out-of-stock item online, grocers are substituting it with something similar, even if that means replacing a store-brand box of cookies with the more-expensive name-brand variety.

Omnichannel grocery shopping drives loyalty

On top of all this, grocers are offering their customers omnichannel experiences that encompass online and in-store experiences:

1. Promotions that customers find in store are the same ones they’ll find online.
2. Rewards such as customer loyalty points for purchases made in store apply to future purchases online.
3. Customer service reps online can help resolve problems with a product purchased in store, and vice versa.

These omnichannel experiences are increasingly important as customers ask themselves one key question: Why should they visit your store, site, or app when another grocery retail store is closer, cheaper, or offers a better customer experience?

Omnichannel experiences encourage your customers to keep coming back. The more they buy, the more you can customize their promotions and offer them rewards.

The right technology can help your business provide true omnichannel experiences that support your shoppers throughout their entire customer journey.