Brick meets click - how do online grocery orders compare?

Measuring Success in Online Shopping

2016 was a big year in online shopping. As more and more retailers begin offering this service to their consumers we’re better able to study how it functions and its impact on the industry. Comparing success in a traditional store format with an online offering isn’t apples to apples. Today Brick Meets Click presented their findings from their first Online Shopping Benchmarking Survey.

Brick Meets Click surveyed nineteen multichannel (brick & mortar, as well as online) banners across North America to define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we can use to better understand stores’ online shopping performance.

The KPIs that came out of the study were:

  • Sales
  • Average Transaction Ring
  • SKUs per Transaction
  • Composition of Transactions
  • Distribution of Transactions
  • Share Analysis
  • Department Prevalence
  • Lost Sales Perfect
  • Frequency Lost Sales
  • Source of Lost Sales

When working to support and online shopping program it is important to not only understand how your organization performs but also how you can design your operation to better support success in these KPIs.

One of the interesting findings is that how long a retailer has been offering an online shopping program is not indicative of their success. A new offering that is thoughtful and well executed and compete against an offering that has long existed in the market.

A few other findings worth noting:

  • Of participating retailers a majority see their average basket size between $50-100
  • Program thresholds (convenience/transaction fees) impact sales, make smart decisions about how these fees are structured
  • Out of stock items or substitutions can not only create lost sales, they can also impact program success with customer reviews and word of mouth
  • Most retailers see growing their orders per week as their biggest opportunity in 2017 followed by operational improvements
  • An important means to support an online offering is through digital media (website, email, social)

Online shopping presents a large opportunity for independent retailers to offer their customers the type of quality service they’ve come to expect in a new, unexpected way. As the industry continues to evolve and new metrics we can look at what impacts customers the most and continually improve to meet their needs.

Why do I work at AWG? “I chose to work at AWG because I want other people to love shopping local grocers as much as I do.” -Andrea