Nov 19, 2014

By Sue Wilkinson, Senior Director, Information Service & Research, Food Marketing Institute Online Grocery Shoppers

On my weekly grocery store trip, I see more and more people using grocery apps. They browse the aisles with smartphone in-hand and I see them checking off shopping lists or using coupons. But just who are these grocery shopping app users and what makes the apps appealing to them? 

A new study from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and Saint Joseph’s University (SJU) profiles various types of digital grocery shoppers. The Digital Grocery Commerce: Insights for Enhancing Consumer Connection with Grocery Shopping Apps, conducted by Nancy Childs, Ph.D., professor of food marketing and the Gerald E. Peck fellow at SJU, uses the IRI DigitaLinkTM segmentation to profile four major types of primary grocery shoppers using smartphones and aware of apps. These include: 

  • Digital Enthusiasts – These shoppers are confident and active online-grocery shoppers. They are young with large households and they embrace technology. Digital Enthusiasts are maturing shoppers looking for convenience and personalization. They are a shopper segment food retailers should focus on for app usage. As a digitally active segment, they represent the full opportunity for the Future.
  • Wired for Work – These shoppers are savvy grocery shoppers who actively use their smartphones. As a more affluent group, Wired for Work shoppers could easily embrace a grocery app if it is meaningfully convenient and personalized in a way that balanced their interests in price. They are a shopper segment food retailers should focus on for app usage, and can be considered a nascent opportunity identified as the Tomorrow segment.
  • Show Me The Money – These shoppers represent the more traditional grocery value segment and are seeking price. App functions that help them meet this need will appeal to them the most. These shoppers need a price incentive in order to utilize a grocery app, and as a segment, represent Price behavior using grocery shopping apps. 
  • Socializers – While these shoppers are active on social media and may even be engaging with brands on those channels, they are not currently using grocery apps or online shopping. Their social sophistication represents an opportunity for food retailers to connect with them by offering a customized grocery app. They are identified as an Opportunity segment in the study.

Download the full grocery app research at www.fmi.org/store. Check out the post on What Food Retailers Need To Know About Grocery Apps.