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The Price of Emotional Connection for Grocery Stores

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The traditional, regional U.S. grocery store—it's the institution that has fed communities for decades and families for generations. It offers that connection to a simpler time, a time when the guy behind the meat counter would know Customers by name, a time when a dad pushed his child around in a shopping cart while they "helped" him shop and a time before mobile phones invaded our lives and sped up the pace of life…

That place—the traditional grocery store—has history. Customers and the people who work there are part of a family. That kind of emotional connection is priceless.


If this is true, then why does Aldi—which borrows a quarter per shopping cart and operates with a small crew that arranges shelves while taking care of customers—have a stronger emotional connection with shoppers than 90% of its competitors?

Yes, that's right. Aldi, known for its cost cutting and low prices, has– an emotional connection that is stronger than nine out of 10 traditional grocery stores.

Traditional grocers may take for granted that they have an advantage over non-traditional channels in the strength of their emotional connection with shoppers, but that doesn't appear to be the case at all. So just how bad is it for traditional grocers?

The inconvenient truth is that the average traditional grocery store has a lower emotional connection with its shopper than the average store in any other major channel where groceries are sold. While traditional grocers have been focused on selling groceries to the same towns for decades, non-traditional grocers have been able to move into those towns and secure a stronger emotional connection in far less time.

How? Well, it appears that emotional connection does have a price, after all. In fact, price perception is slightly more associated with emotional connection than perception of the quality of products and store experience:

And, whereas traditional grocers have managed to hold their own on quality perceptions, they lose on price perception.

So, where does the traditional grocer start if they want to win back the hearts of their local constituents? After all, there are many levers they can pull within pricing, assortment, and store experience to move perceptions. A close look at data from our 2019 Retailer Preference Index: Grocery Channel Edition offers some hints. Stores who have the strongest emotional connection separate themselves from the pack with the following:

  • Private brands that customers love
  • Leading prices on natural and organic items
  • Fast checkout
  • Staff who show they value shoppers

Translated into language customers might use, that means:

  • Have products I can't get anywhere else, at competitive prices
  • Make healthy food affordable
  • Don't waste my time
  • Treat me like a person

Of the 56 retailers ranked by emotional connection, 24 of the bottom 25 are traditional retailers. And while Aldi, ranked 17th for emotional connection, has been used as a stark example to illustrate traditional grocers' emotional connection issue, many other non-traditional stores have a stronger emotional connection with their shoppers than Aldi does with theirs.

However, 3 traditional grocery stores buck the trend and join non-traditional retailers in the top 10: Market Basket (4th), H-E-B (5th) and Publix (6th). They each check more than one of the boxes on the core ingredients of emotional connection.

These retailers, more than any other traditional, regional grocer, have established with their emotional connection an insurance policy for an uncertain grocery industry future. And the prevalence of non-traditional grocers with superior emotional connection proves the point that this insurance policy is more a product of "what have you done for me lately" than a product of consumer nostalgia. Non-traditional grocers are buying emotional connection with better prices while delivering on some combination of a superior private label, offering the best natural and organic prices and having staff who show they value customers.

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Big data is no longer an advantage for only the big guys. Just ask Heinen's.

As I wrote in my previous article, being truly loyal to customers is, above all else, about creating a better store experience. Naturally then, the role of big data analytics (customer science) must be to improve the traditional '4 P's of marketing – so that customers better find the right products, at prices that shout better value for money, and in promotions that more clearly deliver exciting value.

Typically, the costs and complexities of harvesting insights from big data to improve the 4 P's have shut out smaller retailers. But today's cheaper cloud computing and open source technologies can now enable big data advantages to small companies. Data has been 'democratized' in a way that size of retailer no longer matters. To wit: leading the application of big insights in small spaces is Heinen's, a 23-store chain headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.

If you want to see an amazing store experience born from inspired retail art together with applied customer science, you've got to see the Heinen's store in downtown Cleveland. You are sure to notice that Heinen's have transcended the traditional 4 P's to add 3 new P's of Customer Engagement – People, Place, and Personal – and have thereby become even more loyal to their customers. There's a link to a special video feature about this incredible store at the end of this article.


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The Great Recession programmed lasting value-consciousness into the minds of consumers. How might COVID-19 rewire us again?

The fourth annual dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index for U.S. Grocery (RPI) sheds light on what makes a retail winner, and how the pandemic has impacted consumer shopping behaviors. Known as retail's equivalent of the Gartner Magic Quadrant, the RPI surveyed about 10,000 consumers to understand what's driving customer preference and rank the top 57 grocery retailers in the United States.

Join dunnhumby CEO Guillaume Bacuvier as he dives into the latest study, revealing the levers for success, and which retailers are winning the hearts, and wallets, of shoppers today.

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