Asset Protection

By: Patrick Walsh, Vice President, Supply Chain & Chief Business Development Officer, Food Marketing Institute

When was the last time you purchased a hardcover book? How about a magazine? How many of your adult children have a newspaper delivered to their home every day of the week? Did you do most of your holiday shopping this year in a department store or online? All of these questions should stop and make you think because each of these industries—publishing, news media, retail—are being reshaped by digital shoppers. And as it is happening to these industries, it is also happening to our industry.

During the Midwinter Executive Conference, a panel of food retail industry experts discussed new research findings released by FMI and Nielsen on the Digitally Engaged Food Shopper. The research finds that by 2025, the share of online grocery spending could reach $100 Billion in annual consumer sales. That’s the equivalent of approximately 3,900 grocery stores. What’s more, we expect a significant number of brick and mortar categories, representing 40% of center store volume, to migrate to an online shopping experience.  

This introductory set of insights is from a joint, multi-year initiative of FMI and Nielsen to offer a comprehensive look into the behaviors, motivations and expectations of the digitally engaged food shopper. This initial perspective offers recommendations on how food retailers and manufacturers should be developing   their strategies and leading the organizational change that will be required to engage these shoppers.

Along with the findings, FMI and Nielsen have developed an online assessment where you can rate your business in six areas most important to online grocery shoppers—trust, value, experience, assortment, convenience and personalization. This 12 question assessment is the first key step for food retailers and manufactures to start to evaluating where they stand on the readiness scale for the digital food shopper. The confidential responses will be used to help inform future resources for this project and the results can help you take stock of where you stand and consider ways to improve.

As FMI and Nielsen continue this partnership, we’ll look to develop a toolbox to help our members navigate the changing digital shopping landscape and a benchmarking process so we can track progress. There are always hold outs—I would still rather hold a book than read from a tablet—but these findings indicate technology advancements are reshaping our industry, so we must prepare today for the shopper of the future, who could be here tomorrow.

Find out if you’re ready for the digitally engaged shopper. Take our 12 question, online assessment and see how your company rates. Visit www.fmi.org/DigitalShopper.