Unlike a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, if you build an online shopping marketplace, customers might not simply come to play. When a store first launches online shopping, a few customers will be ready to jump on board right away. Everyone else, however, will need some coaxing as they’re asked to change long-held shopping habits. The general rule is to get a customer to make three online grocery purchases to make them a regular online shopper. Beyond general marketing of the program, how else can you encourage online purchases? ONLINE & FACEBOOK ADVERTISINGFind online shoppers where they’re hanging out: the internet. Through online targeted advertising, retailers can advertise to a specific demographic on specific websites such as Better Homes & Gardens or Men’s Health. Highlight special online-only sale or even a certain item. The same can be done on Facebook. While a store’s general posts may be seen by its Facebook followers, you can pay to have your post shown to the people you want to see it, adjusted by age, gender, location and interests. Include…
Do you want Search?
Random Post
Search
Missing Images in Your Online Shopping Store
As the online shopping onboarding process gets close to launch, a somewhat surprising task falls on the shoulders of the retailer: gathering missing images for items that don’t already have a picture in the ecommerce provider’s system. The ecommerce provider will have national CPG images, product descriptions and nutritional information imported from a number of international databases. The provider will also comb through your store’s data to match available images to items that don’t have an image because of how the items are labeled or abbreviated in your backend system. Once that’s complete, a store will most likely be in the 80% image match range. (Most stores launch with an 80-90% match rate. It’ll never be 100%.) The retailer is given a missing image report and it’s usually overwhelming at first glance. It will probably have thousands of items listed, but you don’t need to get pictures for all of them. Many of the items in the list are things you no longer carry or rarely ever sell. You don’t need to worry about those. What’s the likelihood you’re going…
Handling Online Shopping Order Volumes
A common question I hear from retailers getting started in online shopping is, “How do I handle a varying number of orders?” I reached out to Brian Moyer, Co-Founder & CEO of Freshop, to hear what he’s seeing throughout the industry. Here’s what he had to say: Order volume: Concerned about getting orders out the door? There a couple of easy ways to control the flow. Staff as a secondary to start. Train a cashier and have order notifications going to management. Once an order comes in you would have a couple of hours to get a window where the lanes are slow to get the order picked. The biggest danger to start is not having the order ready when the customer shows up, so monitoring notices is critical. As you grow, the personal shopper will become more and more dedicated. To manage labor costs, provide tasking on where they should be working when no orders need to be picked and have a way to track those hours to charge the department using the resource. Front-end is simplest, but many…
The Best Way to Ensure a Successful Online Shopping Program
Just like in store, providing high-quality customer service can make or break your online shopping program. In a recent digitaltrends.com article, writer Erika Rawes tries out Walmart’s free grocery pickup service, but waits more than 30 minutes from the time she pulled up to the store to collect her family’s groceries to the time she leaves. Once home, she finds out she was charged for 10 missing items. If I personally had this experience, I doubt I’d try it again and I would guess that I’m not alone. The whole point to offering curbside pickup is to make grocery shopping easier and faster for the customer. Selecting a partner that provides a clean and user-friendly online experience is the first step, but after that, it’s up to your team to provide a pleasant experience for your customer. First, you have to select a personal shopper who knows what they’re doing. They need to know how to pick and handle the freshest produce and other perishable items. As a customer, I’d rather not get a carton of milk (or any perishable…
Advice from Retailers Who Have Launched an Online Shopping Platform
As AWG’s online shopping specialist, I’m frequently asked what other retailers are doing and thinking when it comes to launching an ecommerce platform. Those retailers at the 2018 AWG Innovation Showcase were in luck as three AWG retailers and industry expert Scott DeGraeve sat down for a panel discussion with AWG Marketing Manager Kate Favrow. The discussion topic? Launching an online shopping platform. DeGraeve started the conversation by noting that three percent of grocery business is currently conducted online. Research shows that number will be 20% by 2025, and could reach that number as early as 2023. That’s a hefty chunk of business you don’t want to lose to your competition that offers online shopping. While nobody wants to see 20% of their business go elsewhere, many retailers are waiting for the perfect circumstances before diving into the online shopping world. You can’t do that, says Jan Greer Endfinger, of Greer’s Markets in Mobile, Alabama and the surrounding areas. Her most important piece of advice to retailers considering online shopping is don’t wait! It’ll never be perfect at the start,…
ONLINE SHOPPING: Are You Ready for the Digital Future of Food?
Adding an online shopping department empowers your store to: Offer convenient grocery delivery and/or in-store pickup services to your customers List your store’s entire catalog of items online for sale, including limited buys and seasonal merchandise Increase average basket sizes using featured products, easy checkouts and shopper planning features Attract new customers to your store who are seeking the convenience of shopping for groceries online Digitally connect with your customers to increase engagement and retention
Which Online Shopping Platform is the Best for Me?
The two most common questions I get about online shopping are: Which platform is the best for me? Which platform is everyone else choosing? There’s not a good way to answer these questions until we dig a little deeper about your individual store(s) and your goals. AWG has partnered with three online shopping providers that offer our retailers options to fit their different needs. The right solution for one retailer might not be a good fit for another. Some providers build you a complete new website while others build platforms that fit into your existing website or are a part of a marketplace with other retailers. That leads to another question. You’ll have to take branding into account. Do you want your ecommerce program to be all about your brand, or are you okay with sharing some of the spotlight (along with customer data and marketing) with your provider? Each provider has a different price point, some providers offer different pricing tiers to fit your needs and budget. Some providers charge you a transactional fee while others don’t. You can pass it…
Do you need online shopping customers’ approval on produce?
Time and again when online shopping is brought up some Negative Nancy inevitably says “What about produce?” like they are the first person to think of this potential problem. Setting aside the fact that the average person really doesn’t know how to pick out ripe produce, stores train their staff in how to spot a good tomato. If a store is going to be really successful in the online shopping game then they will have a well trained staff who know what produce to select for you. Despite hearing this, some customers will remain unconvinced. To combat this Walmart has patented the “Fresh Online Experience”. According Supermarket News, customers would be able to “order produce, meat and bakery items online using stock photos, but then have the opportunity to approve the actual items being purchased via image scans (either two- or three-dimensional) sent to them by Walmart store workers.” After the customer’s approval the items wold be tagged with an “edible watermark” to show it was indeed the item the customer selected. Perhaps this technology will become the standard. However,…
Three Questions to Ask Yourself When Considering an Online Shopping Program
Opening an online storefront is a big project that takes considerable time and effort to accomplish. With such a huge undertaking, you’ll want to ask yourself a lot of questions before you make a decision. I cover many of these in AWG’s Online Shopping Best Practices video. Here’s a sneak peek: Do you need or want a new website? Some providers build an entirely new website for you with an online storefront built in. Other providers build only a storefront that links from your website. Then there are providers like Instacart, where their brand name is the main attraction, and your customers have the option to use the service with other retailers. AWG has completed extensive research of the industry and selected three partner providers that align with our retailers’ needs. Each provider has their own price point with unique capabilities. You’ll have to determine which one best fits your needs. Our team is glad to help walk you through that process. Do I have all our store’s data updated and clean? When you sign on with an online shopping…
Selecting a Personal Shopper for Your Online Shopping Program
You’ve decided to make the plunge into online ordering for your grocery store. You’re working to get data flowing from your register system to your online shopping provider. Now, you have an even bigger decision to make. Who will be your personal shopper(s)? As the face of your store for the online customer, your personal shopper can make or break your customer’s experience. They have to truly understand customer service. You can teach them everything else, but customer service is a natural gift. A good place to start is looking at your internal staff. Who could be a future store director? That’s who you want to run the program. They’ll need to understand every facet of the store, especially how to pick the best produce and meat. In that regard, it helps if they shop for their own household so they have adequate experience. Your personal shopper needs to work extremely well with other associates in order to receive speedy meat and deli service. They’ll also need to be personable and have the ability to get to know their customers.…