In order to reflect on how the grocery world changed in 2020, we have changed how we calculate our overall Grocery RPI score. Given the historically unique metrics we've witnessed in the economy, the restaurant industry and the grocery industry, along with the rare influence a global pandemic has brought to consumer behavior, we're viewing grocery success in 2020 through a different lens than we viewed grocery success in prior years.
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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.
The "new normal" isn't really normal at all. Life amid COVID-19 has forced U.S. consumers to adopt new behaviors, dramatically impacting how they shop, work and go about their daily lives. Trips to the grocery store are now once weekly trips to buy essentials and stock the pantry for home cooking. And, vulnerable consumers now rely on online ordering and delivery services they were once reluctant to try.
On average, it takes 66 days for new behaviors to become automatic. The majority of U.S. consumers will cross that milestone under pandemic restrictions very soon. Retailers should prepare now to successfully serve their customers after the "COVID curve."
Join dunnhumby's Jose Gomes, President for North America, and Eric Karlson, Head of Strategy for North America, as they discuss:
- dunnhumby's model of the three phases of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Insights and learnings from retailers around the globe
- How retailers should prepare to adapt their customer strategy for the "new normal" of customer behaviors and expectations
This webinar originally took place on Tuesday, May 5, 2020 as part of an exclusive four-part webinar series with Retail Leader and Progressive Grocer about how to adapt your Customer Strategy now for life after the curve, and possible implications for Customer Engagement, Category Management, and Price & Promotions.
Since our update last week on How Food Retailers and Manufacturers are Serving and Protecting their Customers in the midst of the Coronavirus, food and pharmacy retailers and their suppliers continue to work tirelessly and heroically – in the face of health risks to themselves – to ensure their customers are able to feed themselves and their loved ones.
As the crisis continues to escalate, this week we look at how retailers are putting employees first and protecting them as part of a Customer First strategy, as well as determining the right way to offer value for money to customers and future considerations for pricing and promotion strategies.
Protecting Employees
Many governments around the globe have turned to formally classifying grocery, pharmacy and convenience store employees as "essential" and "emergency" workers due to the critical nature of their role in keeping stores open to feed and care for their communities. However, also understanding that these workers are exposing themselves to possible health risks, many retailers rolled out a series of safety protocols over the last week including:
- Installing Plexiglass shields between cashiers and shoppers at pharmacy and grocery counters and in any still-open service departments
- Implementing employee safety, self-care, and distancing rules
- Providing protective gloves, masks, face screens, and other personal protective equipment
- Increasing the frequency of sanitization efforts on all high-touch surfaces like payment pin pads, card machines, door handles, and conveyor belts
- Altering hours to close stores earlier and close on Sundays to allow time for staff to rest
- Establishing entrance and access controls to ensure crowds are in compliance with safe social distancing practices
- Assigning employees with higher health risks to tasks with the lowest exposure risks, such as backroom work, and ensuring vulnerable groups are on paid leave.
- Implementing contingency plans to possibly close selected stores, based on data projections for available workforce and competitive intensity to ensure that consumers have a competitor choice if a particular store closes.
Sharing Resources between Sectors
Over the last week, we have also seen associations and outside industries providing resources and sharing workers with the grocery sector. The International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA) has partnered with The Food Industry Association (FMI) to provide excess foodservice resources to the grocery sector. In addition, foodservice distributors with unused capacity — including products, transportation and warehousing services — are connecting with food retailers seeking more supply. Some quick service restaurant franchisees have agreed to provide their staff to local grocers to both help their employees continue working and to fill manpower needs for the grocers. Some grocers have partnered with hard hit sectors in the service industry including travel, entertainment and hospitality to have their furloughed workers transition over to grocery stores and distribution centres.
Early take-aways for Price & Promotions Learnings
Each phase of the crisis will necessitate a different level of promotional intensity by retailers. For those regions still in the early weeks of the pandemic, retailers need help in managing intense demand in order to relieve the pressure on store operations.
Here are some of the actions retailers are taking now in Phase 1 of the crisis:
- Reducing promotions by 30 to 40% during the first several weeks of the pandemic. Some grocers are opting to eliminate all promotions.
- Discontinuing promotions that encourage shoppers to stock up.
- Stopping promotional flyers.
- Increasing digital communications through the website and mobile apps. Retailers are pointing shoppers to their most local stores and updating them on store hours.
Key recommendations for Price & Promotions
- Be careful about your pricing practices and how these affect price perception. Keep strong entry prices and be cautious about taking any price increases during this time of relatively inelastic demand to avoid being seen as profiteering. Price-sensitive and vulnerable shoppers are finding this a particularly tough period – so it is important to keep competitively low prices on KVIs (Key Value Items) and those most price-sensitive lines. Online channels should continue to also reflect in-store prices, and certainly not diverge during this time.
- Shoppers need to find value – so don't stop promoting altogether. Fully cutting all promotions should be done with caution and an understanding of local regulations, how the change is being messaged, and with an eye towards consumer perceptions. Continue to use personalised offers and targeted promotions to drive frequency and spending.
- Trade Planning requires new thinking now. Disruption to the traditional model that now puts supply over demand means that more than ever, grocers and CPGs cannot simply follow last year's promotional plan – and we see this disruption continuing for the next 3 to 6 months. Understanding shopper attitudes and future intentions around key events will be an important factor in event planning over the foreseeable future.
Key Price & Promotion Strategies Looking Forward
1. Value for money will become a heightened driver of behaviour as consumers face a depressed global economy. We see this leading to 1) Further Private Brand differentiation and expansion; 2) Deeper investment in base prices on key lines; 3) Fewer, more efficient promotions; 4) Focus on driving cash profit over % margin.
2. A Customer First approach to pricing and promotion (and ranging) is still the right answer. The good news is that consumer-data-led frameworks such as Key Value Items (KVIs), the Balanced Matrix and Category Roles, Seven Levers of Value Perception – will continue to be appropriate for informing strategic and tactical decisions going forward.
3. Disruptive pricing and promotion models are expanding as a result of consumer behavior changes during the pandemic. We believe that the crisis will trigger a tipping point for retailers to switch from the paper flyer to more digital communication through their website and app, with a more urgent value in making this personal. In-store media will become more important and impactful as well. Subscription models are being adopted by retailers such as "Delivery Savers to help manage online demand. Online pure-players are pointing the way to opportunities for new pricing bundles and subscriptions on "destination" areas, in concert with suppliers.
Implications for Retailers and CPGs
- Retailers and CPGs need to reset price and promotion strategies in order to create a more sustainable, consumer data-driven model. Let's face it – the crisis has forced the entire industry into "rehab" to re-examine its practices on many levels. This catharsis gives both retailers and CPGs an opportunity to step-change promotional effectiveness and efficiency, led more by data than by legacy.
- The "Art" of merchandising and the "Science" of analytics need to be blended, now more than ever. For example, as consumers burn through their loaded stocks and pantries, we believe it is imperative for retailers to institute selective pricing and promotional efforts for perishables and fresh items in the basket mix. Conversely, an expected decrease in some core centre store categories – but not all – calls for precision pricing and promotion to minimise overinvestment.
In this time of unprecedented challenges for businesses, employees, and shoppers, Customer First principles should play a key role in every retailer's strategy. Not just for protecting employees and frontline workers so they can continue to serve their communities, but to prepare for the changing Customer needs as the pandemic develops.