With more consumers than ever purchasing groceries online, it is important for retailers to make fresh a focal point of their eCommerce program. Fresh food eCommerce grew as much as 200 percent during the early months of the pandemic, according to IRI.
Begin by professionally training of your personal shoppers. Use employees familiar with your store’s layout and product curation. Teach them by having them work with your produce and meat departments to pick the freshest fruits, vegetables and choice cuts. Create code dating guidelines so your customers have a few extra days to enjoy their purchase. By exceeding freshness and quality expectations, the more likely your customer will continue to purchase fresh from you. Ease customers’ reservations towards purchasing fresh by offering guarantees for quality. Your personal shopper’s training will strengthen the guarantee backed by quality and freshness.
Feature your signature fresh in their own categories or aisles, such as local produce, seasonal produce, organic and grass-fed meat and sustainable seafood. Call out the differentiating factors that makes your product stand out from your competition. Keep your product names, copy and images current. For example, change corn to local corn, then list the farms you source form in the product’s description. A customer’s first impression of an item is influential towards their purchase of the product. Do not overlook detailed images, such as highlighting a steak’s marbling, or proper product names. Tagging/keywording products such as organic, grass-fed, sustainable and local are equally important. Customers look for transparency when making a final decision on purchasing.
ECommerce has seen an unprecedented acceleration of growth due to the current pandemic. Various recent reports are finding that consumers are seeking out “value-added” fresh items. Highlight and display on your home page cut fruits and vegetables along with ready to heat and eat meals. As restrictions remain with mask mandates and limited restaurant capacities, grab-and-go grocery meals increase in consumer importance.
How do you entice your customers to purchase fresh online from you? Add clickable banners to your site taking customers to rotating carousels or landing pages offering web-only promotions such as $5 off $25 for produce, fresh meat, or seafood. Reach out to your fresh vendor partners to see if they have samples to distribute to customers or can support these types of promotions. Utilize the space on your site and email offerings. Build anticipation for seasonal items such as reserve your Thanksgiving turkey or cotton candy grapes. Have customers sign up for email notifications so they will be the first to know when the key offerings and promotions arrive in store.
Four in five eCommerce customers start with their previous purchases when placing an order. Having a winning strategy is crucial to increasing basket and creating brand loyalty. Creating that trust begins with the execution of fresh’s quality.
The pandemic has put eCommerce years ahead of projections. Consumers have evolved their shopping habits. It remains to be seen if those habits will change again.
