Grocery delivery trends that will redefine customer loyalty

#1 Fluid e-commerce

While e-retail was an option until not too long ago, it has become more mainstream than ever in the last year. 2021 was all about making the entire e-grocery experience as fluid and frictionless as possible. Retailers are also increasingly feeling the impact of third-party apps and aggregator marketplaces on not just brand affinity but also on the pricing differences, delivery experience and several more key aspects that would affect customer experience. This year would be all about finding the right balance between owning this experience and outsourcing it.

#2 Pickups

2020 saw an increase in different pickup options. Flexible pickups, curbside pickups, drop-off points, authorized centers etc. grew increasingly to meet surge demand and also tackle grocery delivery challenges such as delivery slot unavailability, panic buying and more. The year saw how these options got absorbed into mainstream and how retailers can find a balance between how many orders need to be delivered at the customer’s door and how many would be picked up. It is also likely that predictive models evolve in this area where one could forecast these numbers with the help of technology tools. However, availability of past-purchase data is crucial for this to become effective.

#3 Fresh food delivery

With lockdowns and scarcity in grocery deliveries due to constraints posed by logistics challenges, there was an impact on fresh food deliveries. Logistically, it poses another challenge altogether as these are time-sensitive. The behavioral change triggered by a year of ordering fresh food is set to stay and retailers need to figure ways to manage their deliveries and keep up the SLAs considering the urgency and perishable nature of fresh food.

#4 Loyalty Programs

The Amazon Prime wave is creating a rippling effect on the entire industry and every retailer - big or small - is launching their own version of it. Loyalty programs are not just a great retention strategy but also a sure way to get customer data which is critical not just to understand consumer behavior but also critical business. A lot of things such as demand planning, carrier decisions etc. are decided based on this data. Tying it tightly with the legacy systems and ensuring data security, synchronization and interoperability.

#5 Personalization

For grocery retail, the long-term association and familiarity is a huge deciding factor in addition to normal considerations such as cost and convenience. This personalization which goes for a toss to a considerable extent in omnichannel retailing needs to be compensated in other ways. This is a trend which grocery retailers are embracing and figuring out ways and means to achieve higher degrees of personalization to retain brand loyalty.

Are you equipped enough to meet the challenges in the new normal?

With 2020 triggering a wave of changes, 2021 is a key year where grocers are planning not just for the current but the next decade with future-ready technology that considers the evolving nature of the demands of the modern-day consumer and investing in intelligent logistics that forms the bedrock of keeping operations up and running even during times of disruption.