In 2018, online grocery sales went up to $23.9 billion in the US. According to the Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen, online grocery sales are expected to be as big as 100 billion US dollars by the year 2025. With those numbers, the sales of grocers online are just on the track.
Surely, the rise of eCommerce is playing a major role when it comes to the development of the grocery industry. The need for grocery delivery services is still increasing, and with this, innovations are continuously made by many retailers and many trends are on the rise. Here are some grocery shopping trends that consumers can expect to see more in the next few years.
- Curated shopping
When it comes to shopping in both online and mortar and pestle groceries, consumers are sometimes stuck because of the many choices they are faced with. The paradox of choice can actually not help a business at all.
While having a lot of options of choices sound appealing to may, the truth is that consumers are more likely to not make a choice at all when they are offered way too many choices. This is why the curated selection is now important to eCommerce platforms.
This could also be the reason why the biggest online retailers may not be leading in online grocery sales in the next few years. When consumers are looking for specific products like specialty goods, they will most likely go on a website that only caters to that selection.
- Smaller stores
New supermarkets that are on the rise are actually small versions of super-sized markets nowadays. This also has something to do with curating the items that the stores offer to consumers, but from a business perspective, this would also allow lower break-even levels.
If you notice, setting up pop-up stores are becoming more popular and trendier for shop owners. You can see how these pop-ups only appear in certain events or places every few weeks or months. This works nicely for these businesses as limited manpower is necessary. This just means that profit is more achievable this way.
- Sustainability
Millennials are keener when it comes to sustainability and right now, the majority of consumers today are millennials. This is why details like a product’s packaging and how it’s made matters a lot today. Brand loyalty is now something that can be considered as a thing for the boomers.
In 2018 was the rise of environment-friendly packaging. When it comes to buying products, more and more consumers are choosing to get what’s not made or packaged with plastic. Less waste is better and many retailers are now keeping up with this.
- Sections for trendy items
Both online and land-based groceries now have specific sections for people to browse through the trendy foods or products. An example is how the ketogenic diet is now the most popular diets of there. Retailers know this and you can now see or browse through keto-friendly goods easily.
Another trendy grocery product nowadays is the packed meals that are pretty much ready to eat. People find such meals more convenient and just really easier to prepare. This gives consumers the chance to have a restaurant-style meal without having to pay for a restaurant’s services.
- Total transparency
Consumers are now becoming really smart and curious about the products that they buy and so the demand for transparency is now increasing. Information that consumers are demanding from stores and manufacturers are becoming more specific and retailers are still trying to keep up.
In light of transparency, many are looking at applying the blockchain technology to the food and beverage industry. The main goal of using blockchain in this way is to give transparency. It is said that all details, small or big, can be tracked this way. However, this is still something that not all retailers are excited about.
What many are saying is that the use of blockchain technology can log all ingredients and materials used by the manufacturers to create a product. Details like where meat or even the spices were from can be traced.
Despite the promising solution that the blockchain technology has for transparency, it’s still hard to tell if this will be something that manufacturers and retailers are willing to spend on. After all, when it comes to selling products online, they are already struggling with breaking even.
