In the latest content by KPS Global, Online Grocery 101: The Basics of Implementing Online Grocery, Ashleigh Martin and Joe McMenamin outline the players and models retailers are considering.
We’ve all seen and experienced firsthand the surge of consumers wanting to avoid shopping in stores in response to COVID-19. The rapid rise in popularity of online grocery pickup may be a reaction to COVID-19, but Ashleigh Martin, Director of Marketing for KPS Global, explained that online grocery pickup services have been years in the making.
“Large national retailers have been trying different formats to nail down the right model. From basic to robotics and from front of store to back of house,” Martin said.
This model is a challenging one to nail down, even with years of effort put in. According to Joe McMenamin, Director of Ecommerce, KPS Global, the “eCommerce segment as a whole is completely new to the grocery business. And there’s not one single solution for this, and there’s also not a blueprint.”
For grocery stores that want to expand their offerings through ecommerce, McMenamin explained that it’s important to look internally to discover what your company does really well. Even though “it’s new [and] exciting, you have to be pointed in terms of how you’re going to approach the situation,” McMenamin said.
McMenamin also pointed out that adding online orders or deliveries as a customer service requires a massive and challenging overhaul of existing procedures or existing systems that might have been in place for decades. “The new system may be an entirely different platform, and you have to make sure those two to talk to each other,” McMenamin said. He also explained that grocery stores may have to add infrastructure, cold storage, walk-in coolers and freezers to make these services possible.
