By Sam Gagliardi, IRI
 

Despite e-commerce being the fastest growing channel in CPG, approximately 70 percent of U.S. shoppers still have not bought grocery products online. The lack of online grocery adoption creates a huge opportunity for CPG manufacturers and retailers to leverage the latest e-commerce insights to identify and act on significant growth pockets.

While some non-food categories like pet supplies, skin care and weight control have found success in e-commerce, according to IRI’s e-market insights solution, 90 percent of CPG sales are still purchased from brick-and-mortar stores. Brands that want to compete online as well as in-store need a multi-tiered plan for engaging with consumers all across their path to purchase.

Three key strategies for driving CPG growth in-store and online include:

• Harness Website Traffic - Amazon.com is currently the fifth most visited website in terms of unique visitors – the next biggest is Walmart.com (#20). Retailers can mimic the SEO success of both by building a strong network of consumer reviews, which encourages more traffic and sales to a website.

• Leverage Amazon to Website Conversions – Some retailers and manufacturers may consider Amazon a competitor when Amazon should actually be viewed as another important tool to capture consumers’ attention. Starting last year, there were more product searches done on Amazon than Google, which means listing products on Amazon creates opportunities to increase your website traffic and to educate consumers about your brand.

• Use and Improve Click and Collect – IRI expects that click and collect will total more than $6.6 billion in 2020, up from $400 million in 2016. By leveraging existing brick-and-mortar infrastructures, retailers can offer consumers an option that mixes online convenience with in-store familiarity.

Ongoing analysis of e-commerce data and trends helps marketers understand how shoppers are behaving online, provides a 360-degree view of the e-commerce universe and its retailers, and identifies where to invest online. How are consumers arriving at conversion websites? Are there any missed opportunities that can be improved? And, what are the ways you can compare and improve in-store and online sales?

Ideally, all of this data would be captured, combined and organized in a single place with real-time targeting and activation capabilities.

With more than three-quarters of all shopping trips beginning online, brands that want to win need to better understand the online marketplace so that they can further build their presence through the key strategies above, as well as through optimal product distribution, engaging product content and stronger consumer reviews.

Ultimately, you want to more easily drive shoppers down the path to purchase by shortening that path for them.

Questions about how you can improve your e-commerce insights and sales? Want to know more about the IRI E-Market Insights solution? Reach out to me at Sam.Gagliardi@IRIworldwide.com.