Omnichannel

Accelerating the Need for Collaborative Partnerships

Our upcoming Annual Business Conference (ABC) is an ideal forum to set the stage for competing in and collaborating in the evolving retail landscape. In speaking with numerous retail and supplier members, the general consensus is that there are five ...

Taking Stock of Where We Are: A Look at the Impact of COVID-19 on Grocery Shopper Habits

For five long months, we have all been experiencing the unprecedented realities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the frustrating truths of supply and the dramatically increased demand for groceries. Once ingrained grocery shopping ...

2020 Midsummer Strategic Executive Exchange By The Numbers

On July 7th, FMI will kick off our first virtual event, the 2020 Midsummer Strategic Executive Exchange. While this virtual trading partner exchange was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we feel the top industry executives engaging in this event ...

A New Look at Shopper Transparency Expectations

The growing power of ecommerce is underscored in FMI’s U.S. Grocery Shopping Trends 2020 (Trends) report. Weekly online grocery spend reported by shoppers soared to 27.9% of all grocery spending in the March/April period of this year, from 14.5% in ...

Grocery’s Ecommerce Evolution during COVID-19

The pandemic has accelerated ecommerce demand, pressuring capabilities and providing invaluable lessons for the future. I am not usually one to make dramatic statements about industry developments, but I have mostly put that aside during this ...

Requirements for a New Normal in the Food Supply Chain

Normal is a comforting word; even saying it aloud offers context and sets expectations. When it comes to the business of food and our greater marketplace, the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly upended the ordinary. Today, the meaning of normal seems to ...

Next Steps In Couponing

As we have seen in past recessions, most recently in 2008, coupon usage increases dramatically when consumers feel economic pressure. From 2008-2009, all coupon redemption increased 15.2%. What will that number look like this time around? Inmar ...

Unprecedented Times

Throughout this pandemic, FMI has been tracking consumer trends and charting how shopping behaviors are changing to accommodate the unique situation that COVID-19 has foisted upon us in our U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends COVID-19 Tracker. Honestly, the ...

A Dreamy Strategic Plan for Midsummer

FMI’s Midsummer Strategic Executive Exchange provides a unique strategic opportunity for trading partner collaboration to hit the reset button and together identify, prioritize and address the industry’s most pressing business issues. Through ...

Understanding Online Order Fulfillment Options

Unprecedented online grocery shopping growth because of COVID-19 has dramatically increased the need for efficiency and better understanding of online retail fulfillment operations. Last week, in a virtual program hosted by FMItech & The Center for ...

We’re All In This Together

Since the early days of the pandemic, FMI staff have been tracking news stories recording the food industry’s responses to their communities. Our tracking is a growing spreadsheet updated daily with nearly 200 rows documenting stories of food, ...

The 2020 Strategic Playbook For The Food Industry

FMI and Oliver Wyman’s annual journal publication Boardroom provides a starting point. In fact, volume 5 of the journal is a strategic playbook for the emerging issues a food retailer or supplier should be discussing in their boardrooms—that’s how ...

Food Industry Leaders Must Learn, Unlearn and Relearn

The trick to navigating this new landscape is being smart about what you need to learn, what you must unlearn and then what you need to relearn. And the key to effective leadership during this era of evolution is first, knowing the degree to which ...

Aligning Federal Programs with the Evolving Marketplace

FMI is focused on ensuring our members can reach and serve all their customers, regardless of how they pay or shop for their grocery items. FMI's Omnishopper Imperatives for Food Retailers study estimates online and in-store spending for food and ...

Omnishopper Size of the Prize

For the past few years, FMI has partnered with Nielsen on important research that does just that—pauses and looks at the state of the omnichannel marketplace for grocery shoppers and reflects on what is happening. In the beginning we focused on ...