The disposition of common folk towards online grocery store shopping is noteworthy in recent time. The year 2015 witnessed one third of shoppers in Asia-Pacific regularly navigated online shopping for food. Although in the other parts of the world online grocery store shopping was not common, it was just a growing trend, which has become more pronounced. According to projections by Deutsche Bank, online grocery store shopping is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.2%, which is significant if compared with a 2.5% CAGR for total grocery sales.
The managements of offline supermarkets feel pressed to switch over to online, but only a few of them have stayed on top of trends. When the customers worldwide found online grocery store shopping convenient and easy, they moved massively to it. This trend of consumers has found some supermarkets suddenly out of the race.
Online grocery shopping has been gaining momentum among all age groups and geographies, and this pace of popularity seems to be accelerated more in the upcoming months. This predicts to invest in improving your e-commerce capabilities as soon as possible.
Here are seven important tips to get you started with.
Focus on speed and ease of use
- Simplicity and usability of the platform should be your top goals.
- It attracts everyone to register, find the products he needs, add or remove items in the cart, review and edit the order and pay.
- Proper grouping of items in categories and sub-categories makes easy to find the required goods of customers as no one wants to scroll for long to search an item.
- Produce high-quality pictures, and clearly label brand names, price, ingredients with nutritional value and allergens as well as size of packets.
- Include expiry dates wherever possible. If a shopper knows that the Greek yogurt lasts three more weeks, they might buy three packs instead of one.
- Take care of returning shoppers. Offer customers the chances to regenerate the previous orders quickly and activate shopping lists where people can add staples and family favorites. Show customers their purchase history and make them to share the basket with other family members.
- Ensure the speed of your site. If it is too slow to load, buyers may quit their carts without completing the purchase.
State the important information up front
The merchants should provide all the necessary information in the fore front of the online grocery store shopping website. Make your buyers aware of shipping prices, delivery time, delivery limitations, geographical areas covered in the service and special terms and conditions before they choose a single item to their cart to make purchase.
It is mandatory to add a progress bar that may lead the customers to payment after running across all the necessary steps which facilitate them to a contented purchase. The progress bar may have the steps like (“Customer details” > “Shipping” > “Payment information” > “Review order” > “Confirm and pay”).
When the order is placed, include a pop up of “order completed” where all the main information is depicted as products purchased, delivery time and payment details, time of order and some other customer supports as a link to track the shipment and customer care number to call if necessary.
Think of the different platforms
Today smartphone has become more handy and feasible to perform most of the task online. Who wants to start a laptop or PC to purchase grocery online? According to the data from marketing site, The Drum, 63% of traffic and 53% of sales on retailers’ online grocery store shopping sites happened via mobile last year. As mobile online grocery shopping is going to be more common, the merchant should ensure that his website works well on mobile devices.
The following points should be considered in your online grocery store shopping website:
- Ensure your online grocery site is responsive.
- The buttons should be big enough to tap easily and the text fields large and easy to type into.
- The pictures need to clear that people can zoom in to see extra details.
- All information should be clearly visible on small screens.
- Ensure the customers can move between items and categories easily.
- Keep the payment process simple and easy to follow.
Make it easy to navigate
The online grocery store shopping site should be customer friendly where they can find myriads of items arranged in proper order and category. Make full use of the online grocery website to display endless variety that the visiting customer find easily what he needs. Consider the following points:
- Display trending categories that can be accessed from the top menu.
- Enable customers to sort articles by brand, price, group, review scores and so on.
- Make sure that the customer may skim information easily. Keep bullet points and arrange information orderly as (ingredients, then pack size, then weight, then expiry date etc. In this way users can search what they need at a glance.
- The “buy” button should be clearly visible.
- Your search function must Include a predictive suggestions and auto corrects for the customers may not leave without purchase due to no results of his search.
Flexible delivery works
Customers of different professions expect several delivery options and time slots, so the online grocery store merchant should offer them certain delivery times. It is better to offer precise delivery windows, and allow customers to pick the one that better fits their schedule. The precise delivery schedule will make the customers decide to shop with you. The online grocery stores should consider partnering up with distribution agents who will decrease your burden. This model, has been adopted by most of the online grocery store companies like Basketor that deals with the customers with its partners successfully.
Guarantee high quality
Who wants to purchase stale items which may spoil before it is used? The online grocery store shopping companies consider their customers’ concern over the quality of fresh items and worries about the risk of spoilage during delivery. Such barriers are to be overcome to win the favour of the customers:
- Refrigerated lockers, short time period of delivery, and click and collect within a specific pick-up window are of the options to ensure freshness of the items while you offer your customers high flexibility.
- Mention proper information for fresh produce by labeling the expiry date and date of packing.
- Keep feedback, and feature customer reviews on your website under each product.
- Give option to your customers if they like to exchange the products, or get their money back when food does not meet the buyers’ expectations at delivery.
Online business etiquettes
The shoppers judge the online grocery store on the basis of the quality of the products, function of the online grocery shopping websites, the delivery service, product descriptions, the refrigerated locker and many more. Convenience of the customers is a key element in their decision to shop for grocery online. Inconvenience or a poor experience with you runs a risk of losing a customer forever.
Therefore it becomes mandatory for reputed online grocery store to ensure accuracy of information for products, timely proper delivery, efficiency etc. Keep all the salient features of online grocery shopping business in mind if you want to groom it with the best services of online customers. We expect the grocery e-commerce will continue its upward trend for long. So it is advisable to maintain online grocery business etiquettes that offer a great chance of business development.
