Progressive Grocer - March 2019

Why go to the store? We saw a few jaws drop during a session
at the recently concluded India Food Forum conference, when a
speaker questioned the need for physical stores. I thought the
question was particularly timely, considering our outlook of the
omnichannel world, going ahead. I mean, most surveys seem
to indicate that, while consumers are increasingly embracing
online grocery shopping, they also express a desire and
affection for the experience delivered by a trip to the store.
Online groceries are a rising trend. Near-future predictions
include: Online grocery will grow steadily as consumers get a
lot less anxious about buying produce online. Grocers will try to
move to pure e-commerce models to handle the rapid growth,
but will be stymied by lack of skilled personnel. And grocers will
scale out their private label on any channel they can get their
hands on.
The innovator’s dilemma is currently real for every grocer
on the planet, many of whom don’t understand the nuances of
technology-driven marketing. Not many existing supermarkets
are prepared for the impact, even though they are doing
their best to adopt as much tech as they can. Unfortunately,
we’ve found that margin improvements required to win online
groceries mean that they will probably have to be technology
companies, applying data and code to stitch together a new way
to build for the next hundreds of millions who have really started
to dislike shopping at stores