Spurred by the COVID-19 outbreak, the recent increase in demand for consumer goods has exposed weaknesses in the go-to-market process for brands. While toilet paper, paper towel, and hand sanitizer supplies ran short, other “essential” products saw record sales.
According to recent data from Adobe Analytics, sales of canned goods increased by 69%, while sales of shelf-stable products increased by 58%. The “flour” category alone saw 238% growth in April.
Consumer demand for online grocery shopping is higher than ever before.
Building an online strategy is essential for the future of your consumer goods brand. Within a matter of weeks — not months or years — your brand can take steps to accelerate your time to market on critical grocery channels, helping you meet these new modern shoppers.
Consumers Want Online Grocery Options
At the end of 2019, Brick Meets Click data showed that just 6% of online grocery shoppers were repeating customers. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, this number has doubled to 12%.
Some commerce experts have predicted this number to hit 30% within the next five years. Grocery app downloads have seen significant adoption rates, with Shipt up 124%, Walmart Grocery up 160%, and Instacart up 218%.
While some consumer goods brands are seeing all-time highs, many are falling behind in market share due to their inability to keep up with these shifts in demand due to inadequate tools and processes.
Brands that have prioritized online channels using the Salsify Product Experience Management (PXM) platform can quickly adapt to market changes and deliver the content experiences that help them expand market share and drive sales. Food and candy manufacturer Mars, for example, used the Salsify PXM platform to launch its top product SKUs across five regions within just 90 days.
There are three key steps required for brands to accelerate time to market across top grocery channels.
Step 1: Centralize Product Content for Easy Access
When product content is housed and managed in a single location, teams across departments can access the most up-to-date and accurate versions easily. There are many benefits to centralizing product content for easy access: Online and offline processes can be unified. Product content can be updated across all channels instantly.
Brands can move at the ever-quickening speed of commerce without jeopardizing accuracy and team control.
Step 2: Streamline Process for Product Content Activation
According to analytics from Forrester, by 2023, 58% of all U.S. retail sales will be digitally influenced. Consumers perform online research, check prices on their smartphones while shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, and then purchase the item with the best price, or that is the most convenient.
Shoppers move across these channels seamlessly, and successful brands must be able to meet them at every touchpoint in their shopping journey. Salsify Syndication helps brands streamline the process for activating content across top grocery channels — ensuring the best content goes to every retailer and endpoint.
Salsify Syndication helps brands save time. When content gets updated in the centralized PXM, it’s automatically updated everywhere it exists online. This process helps reduce errors, decrease pressure on teams, and accelerates content updates.
Step 3. Leverage Enhanced Content for Increased Conversion and Sales
Seventy-nine percent of shoppers have not purchased a product due to problems with product content, according to the 2020 Salsify Consumer Research report, with 58% pointing to a lack of information or details.
Once your team has centralized product content and streamlined processes, enhanced content can help you enrich the consumer journey with below-the-fold image galleries, videos, 360-degree product image spins, comparison charts, and downloads.
Salsify Enhanced Content can help brands increase conversion across categories by 10%, according to 2019 Salsify internal data. For example, snack manufacturer Snyder’s of Hanover used Salsify to relaunch 12 brands online on Walmart (and meet best content practices), and it saw an increase in sales of 260%.
Take Ownership of Top Grocery Channels
Your brand doesn't have to wait for annual reports to analyze product-content opportunities. Data on workflows, product page compliance, search engine optimization (SEO) and share of search, and competitive reporting, can and should be evaluated regularly. With this information, you can optimize what consumers see and when.
Using the Salsify PXM platform, pasta manufacturer Barilla was able to optimize its product content and achieve a 59% share of the search results for the keyword "pasta."
Waiting to align your product page content to consumer expectations will risk sales growth. Forgo plans of other organizational change and put these online-grocery shopping structures into place now to increase market share and brand loyalty.
