Purchasing groceries, i.e. FMCG is a part of everyone’s lives. Covid-19 bought a (hopefully) once if a lifetime behavior shifts of mass adoption of online shopping. Now most of us have found a balance between online and physical shopping, which proves that BOTH have a part to play in our lives.

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While online grocery shopping comes with its undeniable advantages (home delivery – that too in paper bags / convenience of shopping at one’s own preferred time, no need for travel and trying to find parking, etc.), a physical visit to a grocery store has its benefits as well.

And these grocery stores come in multiple avatars, such as Hypermarkets, Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Discounters, etc. Most shoppers visit a mix of these over time, and the choice of the store type depends on the need. The neighbourhood Convenience Store would meet the needs of a mid-week top-up while a Hyper / Supermarket would be the preferred destination for a weekend “trolley-purchase” visit where other domestic tasks are also met in the Shopping Mall where the grocery store is located. And once a quarter, or before a festive season, one may visit a Bulk Discounter.

In all these stores, retailers can make the life of the shopper more convenient by understanding the Customer Journey. This will encourage both more frequent visits as well as more spends per trip / more time & engagement per trip. It is critical to note that every trip has a Pre / During and Post phases with UNIQUE needs that MUST be catered to individually.

During the Pre-Visit stage we need to understand what drives the store choice, i.e. mind measures. Here retailers need to see what need-states exist and what communications are needed to address the same. During the visit to the store, purchase driver behaviours come into play. Here everything from the entrance to ease of navigation between the aisles to attractive / relevant merchandising to SKU assortment optimization to new brand launches to billing speed / accuracy to rewards from loyalty programs matter. The Post Visit stage involves the ease of the journey back home, the effortlessness of unpacking and storage, billing and / or packaging issues if any being addressed to quickly and fairly, the overall Customer Satisfaction influencing the likelihood of the next visit, etc. – again related to mind measures.

Market Research can help retailers understand how to drive a superior Customer Experience by understanding which of these touchpoints matter more and where they stand on them. This can be ascertained both for an internal benchmarking (for brands that have multiple assets) as well as competitive analysis. Quarterly evaluations can help Monitor / Measure / Manage the benefits of the changes activated derived from the learning’s of these studies.

If you found this interesting, please do reach out to us to see how we can help you drive data driven business growth.
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