Ways to drive trial online
"Demand for online grocery has soared" is a familiar headline, with The Grocer online power list quoting Kantar figures that state online now has 11.5% share of all grocery sales with Nielsen estimating online's share at 13% in the last 12 weeks.
The rise in online purchases is not a surprise, nor is the challenge it brings for many FMCG brands to encourage trial with new shoppers.
Nature of the online grocery challenge for FMCG brands:
The majority of online purchases are planned, and retailer sites actively encourage shoppers to pick from their previous shopping lists. This makes it hard to disrupt the shopper's decision-making process and encourage trial of new brands for the first time (add in Kantar figures or similar to back these points up).
Of course, there are always promotions and numerous options to get your brand to pop-up in front of your target shoppers - but, these come at a price, and may only deliver short-term uplifts in volume, not an ongoing change in behaviour.
Based on our experience we would suggest that the most effective way to drive sales is to start with the consumption occasion and work back from there.
In the world of online shopping, consumption driving activity traditionally includes:
- Participation in an event or a seasonal theme
- Sponsoring recipes (which tend to focus on the retailer's own label products)
- Link promotions with other brands or products (current examples?) to promote an occasion
Fortunately technology is opening up new opportunities - here are a few ideas we've seen recently that sound promising:
- Recipe based Discovery tool by Swedish start-up NorthFork that helps your target consumers discover new recipes and shopper smarter
