Online Grocery: Which Trends Should Your Business Adopt to Dominate the Industry?

Highlights:   

• Introduction
• Adoption of AI and drones by the online grocery industry
• Shift towards sustainability
• Benefits of online grocery model to small businesses
• Integration of voice order technology

 

The global e-commerce industry has expanded to include almost all products and services. One important category of the e-commerce sector is the online grocery industry. Grocery is one of the important items that are needed daily by a household. Naturally, the online grocery industry, by offering to deliver groceries at doorstep, has simplified the lives of people. Like a normal retail and grocery shop, online grocery stores such as Amazon Fresh, Kroger, Big Basket, etc., offer vegetables, dairy products, breads, fruits, and packaged foods. Moreover, customers are exposed to a wide variety of choices with multiple brands and vendors selling their products at one place.

How use of advanced technologies by online grocery companies is changing the face of the industry?

Online grocery companies and websites have, like most other industries, sought the help of Artificial Intelligence to enhance the shopping experience for customers and cater to their demands in a comprehensive manner. AI has helped these companies track consumer behavior on their websites and thus offer their customers personalized choices. Some websites, with the help of AI, even provide users personalized grocery offers which helps these websites retain their customers.

Online grocery stores have also started using unmanned aerial vehicles or drones for delivery of groceries at the user’s doorstep. This has helped companies to deliver groceries at a much faster speed. Also, the possibility of contamination of groceries is reduced as there is no human-to-human contact during delivery of goods.

Focus on sustainability

A major concern that was raised with the rapid expanse of the e-commerce industry is the massive surge in use of plastics for packaging. In order to tackle this problem, many online grocery stores have started using recycled paper packages to deliver the goods, thereby reducing the usage of plastic. Some online grocery stores have started delivering groceries in textile bags which can be reused multiple times.  Also, use of drones is expected to reduce carbon emissions caused by delivery vehicles.

How advancements in the online grocery industry have helped small businesses?

Almost all the multinational corporations that operate in this industry are technology companies with no experience in the agriculture sector. In short, the fruits and vegetables they sell are not cultivated by them. Rather, these companies sign contracts with farmers to sell their produce to them. Since farmers sign contracts, they get assured payments; at the same time, companies get the produce directly from the farmer without any middlemen, thereby helping the companies to earn a higher profit margin. In fact, due to this very model, the fresh produce segment of the online grocery industry is expected to be one the highest grossing segments with an absolute revenue growth of $142,984 million by 2032. In the past few years, many small-time grocery vendors have also taken their business online and have registered huge growth in their reach and sales.

Adoption of voice order technology

Many online grocery vendors have introduced conversational chatbot features on their websites which help customers to place their orders without any hassle. An upgrade of this feature is the adoption and integration of voice order technology on online grocery websites. Research has shown that voice orders are much more convenient and will help customers to place orders without having to search the website for products.

To get a comprehensive understanding of the upcoming trends in the online grocery industry, feel free to contact us.

 

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