How grocers can improve their online presence

Since the pandemic began in 2020, there was a drastic shift in many businesses due to a change in customer behaviour and lockdown policies. Grocery stores were no exception as many customers avoided going to public places. The solution for this decrease in foot traffic was to digitize and transform traditional brick and mortar grocery businesses to respond appropriately to consumer behaviour.

Although the pandemic has subsided, the shift in customer behaviour appears to be long term. If you are grocer who doesn't have an online internet presence, you're missing out on a major opportunity. According to this McKinsey article, over 52% of households shop for groceries online.

This blog is going to cover everything you need to know about improving your online presence and gaining immediate business success.

How to Develop an Effective Social Media Strategy for a Grocery Store to Grow?

For grocery stores, the shift in consumer behaviour has been quick, and adapting to the changes is a challenge in and of itself. Most importantly, grocers must be ready to embrace opportunities as they arise and to plan for the future before it occurs.

Online grocery has undoubtedly been the industry with the most growth potential during the pandemic. In 2022, it continues to grow because it has proven to be a convenient alternative to having to visit a grocery store in person.

Let's look at some of the strategies available to online grocery stores, and how you can use them to help your business grow by offering the best user experience.

1. Choose Platforms Where Your Target Audience Is Most Active

Before you begin posting about your grocery shop, you must first identify on which platform your target audience is most likely to engage. That is the best way to analyse the success of your online grocery store.

A grocery brand will have a variety of customers, and you may use buyer personas to help you target the many types of clients you serve. Buyer personas are fictional representations of actual customers.

You may establish a presence on several social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

The best thing you can do is create different platforms for buyer personas. You can use Facebook to target your middle aged customers, and Instagram or TikTok to attract millennials or Gen Z.

2. Be Innovative With Your Content

In an age where every business has an online presence, be prepared for your posts to get lost along the way. So, when you first start posting, make sure your content is engaging and innovative. This will capture your audience's attention and encourage them to check out the rest of your content and make a purchase.

Share food ideas and recipes that include ingredients bought from your store as a creative concept for your postings. You can also come up with other, more unique ideas.

3. Encourage Interaction With Your Audience

With social media, you may connect with your audience on a more personal level by chatting with them in the comments or responding to their direct messages.

You may also make polls, which will provide your followers with an interactive way to communicate with your store.

You can also hold a question and answer session. You can ask your audience questions, which may urge them to interact with your post and respond to your question.

The benefit of an encouraging engagement strategy is that the people that contact you will get more familiar with your brand and are more likely to become customers.

4. Provide Quality Customer Service

Feedback, whether positive or negative, comes with hosting businesses online. Your customers may have complaints, wish to report an issue, or have inquiries about your store.

You can take advantage of this opportunity to respond to queries and concerns.

This will eventually benefit your business because it shows your followers that you are kind to dissatisfied customers and that you care about them, as well as portraying a positive image of you and your brand.

5. Advertise on Social Media

Running social media marketing is the most important aspect of your online grocery business. These are paid adverts that show in the social feeds of users.

You may obtain more followers, enhance brand visibility, generate more leads, and increase conversions by advertising. It's a good way to reach out to customers who haven't yet discovered your store.

You can also build adverts that are targeted to your target audience.

6. Optimize Your Website

Launching a website also entails optimizing it to its best ability. Make sure your website is user-friendly and responsive, meaning it works well on all devices. It should also appear high in web searches.

Remember that any flaw or fault on your website can cause a user to abandon their cart and become a competitor.

7. Utilize Digital Marketing

Work with a digital marketing expert who can create a solid, effective strategy tailored to your company's goals.

Grocers with a strong brick-and-mortar presence can benefit from mobile techniques like app-based or SMS marketing, QR codes, and location-based marketing. All of this is made possible by digital marketing.

8. Be Open and Transparent

Customers will only need to click once to learn about an organisation's goals and how it affects the world. And being honest and truthful with customers is the best approach to gaining their trust.

You can post employee bios so clients can learn who works behind the scenes. Customers may call attention to the brand, making it more tangible. Content should be created on a regular basis to creatively promote the company's key principles, brand voice, and goods.

The more your company's brand is linked to current affairs, the more appealing it becomes. It demonstrates that the business is concerned about social, political, and environmental issues and wants to make a difference. It implies that it is concerned with more than just profit.

6 Ways That Online Grocery Stores Can Improve Their Services

Grocers should better manage their online services and improve product content as early as possible to benefit from the opportunity of online groceries. This will enable them to provide a better online and in-store experience to customers, which is critical for building grabbing customer loyalty and winning sales from cash from competitors.

Here are six moves that grocery stores should take to succeed with online services.

1. Work With Your Suppliers

Grocers can now obtain products directly from suppliers, which are both fresh and of high quality. Grocers can thus provide their clients with high-quality items while simultaneously saving money.

2. Create Rich Media

Grocers have the greatest opportunity to develop immersive content that highlights how their products are used in real-life settings. These could be recipe videos or marketing content demonstrating the use of various products together.

Grocers can even include a ‘buy option’ in their enhanced content to make things easier for their customers and to boost conversion rates and overall online sales.

3. Provide a Personalized Online Experience

Customers will find it easier to shop for groceries online if you personalize their experience. The goal is to avoid any interruptions or distractions.

Some examples of personalized services include:

• Rather than losing everything they entered in the cart when a customer closes a tab, they will get it back the next time they open it which will make them the happiest and most content
• Your website can maintain track of the products specific buyer purchases over time using data. The website can then offer the same products each time they visit, putting customers at ease and saving time
• Look for software that allows for lot code and expiry date traceability
  

4. Integrate Smart Search Technology

Without smart technology, when a customer searches for a product by name but accidentally types in the incorrect spelling, the site will populate incorrect or no results. This will lead the customer to goes to another grocer with a better eCommerce experience and search engine to find the product they’re looking for.

Grocers should invest in smart search technology that can accommodate for typos, real-time inventory, lot code/expiry tracing, and other issues to keep customers on their website. Additionally, grocers must ensure they have complete product data so that the search engine can properly match and present their products in the search results.

5. Give Discounts

Many people are financially strapped and hunt for bargains wherever they can. Use discounts to maintain a strong policy between the store and the customer, which falls in line with creating a relationship with the customer.

6. Build Loyalty

The only thing that keeps that customer coming back is loyalty. The trick is to construct it in whatever way imaginable, from rewards programs to particular discounts for returning customers, new customer discounts, and so on.

This relationship will be a valuable asset in the future, not only because it means the same individual will return, but also because they can become promoters of your brand and service, bringing in additional customers.

Conclusion

Technology is constantly growing, and the world will become more digitized in the next 5 years. Grocers must keep up with digital trends and prioritize marketing efforts to keep their brand top of mind as rapid grocery delivery and quick-commerce becomes more popular.

To learn more about the quick-commerce revolution and how OrderGrid improves online sales for grocery brands, contact us.