grocery
MaxMedia Retail Labs Industry Report:
grocery November 2015
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
95%
of shopping and purchase decisions are made non-consciously where emotions, memory, and instincts rule the day.
About Our Industry Reports: MaxMedia Retail Labs redefines shopper research. Consider the fact that 95% of shopping and purchase decisions are made non-consciously where emotions, memory, and instincts rule the day. We use a psychological approach to research with studies focused on accessing this “hidden layer” of data. Our studies are carefully crafted to access non-conscious motivators of shoppers in different retail categories. We apply our proprietary Emotional Experience CENTER Model and the same cognitive analytics engine used by P&G and other leading retail companies.
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
2
With statistical significance, our team determined which of the identified six experiential levers are most important to shoppers:
Comfortable
Shoppers need to feel mentally and physically safe and secure from the moment they enter the store until the time they leave.
Easy
Shoppers’ brains want to expend as little energy as possible. Intuitive, easy to navigate shopping environments are paramount.
Novel
Only the new, interesting, intriguing or surprising gets shoppers’ attention in a crowded, cluttered, and highly-distracting world.
Tactile
Shopping physical stores should be a visceral, emotional, sensorydriven experience, delivering immersive shopping moments.
Engaging
Shoppers want to be more than just a spectator; they want to be a player in the shopping game and look for opportunities to engage and become part of the story.
R ewarding
Today’s shoppers crave the personal satisfaction of making the right choices and being recognized for it. They seek a sense of accomplishment, confidence, or pride.
Methodology: Our Retail Labs team uses the CENTER Model levers to unearth quantitative data expressing shoppers’ expectation of an industry. Each factor is scored 0-5: 0 as least important, 5 as most important. We compare these results to the qualitative data (also represented 0-5) gleaned from the reality of how companies deliver on each of the six levers. This gap is the sweet spot for industry improvement and opportunity.
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
3
MaxMedia Retail Labs Industry Report:
grocery
Study conducted by MaxMedia Retail Labs in October 2015 Participants: 100 Americans, 18-65 years of age, who were asked to reflect upon their experiences at their primary grocery store.
what we know
Grocery shoppers switch from a logical, “cross it off my list” mindset to an intuitive, emotion-driven mindset 23 minutes into the shopping trip. At 40 minutes, nearly all shoppers are shopping (and buying) in intuitive mode¹.
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
U.S. restaurant and bar sales growth is outpacing grocery store sales 4:1 according to the U.S. Commerce Department, and many grocers are transforming their stores to offer more prepared food options².
4
what we found comfortable
easy
rewarding
Grocery shoppers expect an engaging, tactile, novel and rewarding experience, but expect to sacrifice comfort and ease in the process. The reality is that grocery shoppers encounter a more comfortable and slightly easier experience than anticipated. The experience falls considerably short on tactile, and somewhat short on rewarding, engaging and novel.
engaging
novel
Industry Expectation tactile
Industry Performance
Image 1.0 Shopper expectations of the grocery stores vs. the reality of grocery store experiences.
Conclusions What is it that keeps shoppers coming back in grocery? As it relates to both happiness and loyalty, reward is most closely correlated. A rewarding experience for shoppers makes them feel good about their purchase. This might include the satisfaction of saving money and being a hero to their family, or it could reflect the social good experienced by patronizing a store that touts local, sustainable food practices. “I was looking for a particular item, and the store manager ordered it and kept it in stock for me. She went over and above my thinking of customer service. I need this item for my specialized diet, and I felt like a special customer.”
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
5
“The best experience I remember having was when I was able to get in and out of the store very quickly, because I had to get what I needed in order to cook dinner for my family that night. I was able to find the boneless chicken breast they had on sale and some sweet potatoes, and made in back it time to finish cooking and relax a little before my family went crazy looking for their dinner.” “It’s all difficult to carry, and to load into the car. Once, the grocery manager sent one of his staff along with us to our home to help us unload, and even bring the groceries into our kitchen.”
What is it that keeps shoppers away in grocery? An uncomfortable shopping environment is the single biggest factor in creating frustration and churn for grocery shoppers. An uncomfortable environment in grocery might be something like messy, cluttered aisles, long checkout lines, or an uncomfortable temperature. It might also be something more subtle like the rejection or embarrassment shoppers feel if their coupons aren’t accepted or the feeling of being watched by loss prevention resources.
“I hadn’t been to this store before, and right away I was turned off. The store had a strange, unpleasant smell, and it distracted me the whole time. I had trouble concentrating because of the smell. It put me in a bad mood and I just couldn’t understand how the issue wasn’t addressed.”
“They were unorganized, not very friendly, and it was an overall chaotic experience. I got a lot for what I spent, but it was not worth waiting in the long lines or maneuvering around all of the people.”
“At a store, an employee was watching me like a hawk, and made me feel as though they thought I wouldn’t be able to afford the items in my cart and that I would steal them.”
“A trip to a grocery store where the parking lot was in poor repair and the store itself smelled funky was my worst experience. I was unable to find anything other than a few basic items on my list, and received no assistance from employees, as there didn’t seem to be any working there. All the products on the shelves seemed damaged or near expiration, and the store was crowded with unsavory customers.”
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
6
what we think Grocers would benefit by catering to the non-conscious drivers of today’s shopper. The biggest inhibitor of return visits is lack of comfort. Providing a relaxing, sensory-rich environment is key to making a shopper feel comfortable and “safe” inside the store. The goal should be to create an environment that keeps the shopper in-store long enough to “ditch the list” and start shopping emotionally (23 minutes according to research). This will increase the size of the basket and enhance the positive sentiment of the grocery store brand. Technologies designed to help make more informed choices in the aisle are important to ease the burden of grocery shopping for today’s time-challenged consumer. Shoppers today are accustomed to doing research on the products they buy, and grocery is no different. Giving them opportunities in-store to dig deeper on certain products (ingredients, sustainability, popularity, peer reviews) will help alleviate the paralyzing paradox of choice. Additionally, frictionless payment, digital coupons and other technologies should be on grocers’ radars to help streamline the checkout process. 1 Medical Daily: The Psychology of Shopping: How Grocery Stores Make Rational Spending Nearly Impossible 2 U.S. Census Bureau News: Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, September 2015
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
7
grocery November 2015
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
95%
of shopping and purchase decisions are made non-consciously where emotions, memory, and instincts rule the day.
About Our Industry Reports: MaxMedia Retail Labs redefines shopper research. Consider the fact that 95% of shopping and purchase decisions are made non-consciously where emotions, memory, and instincts rule the day. We use a psychological approach to research with studies focused on accessing this “hidden layer” of data. Our studies are carefully crafted to access non-conscious motivators of shoppers in different retail categories. We apply our proprietary Emotional Experience CENTER Model and the same cognitive analytics engine used by P&G and other leading retail companies.
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
2
With statistical significance, our team determined which of the identified six experiential levers are most important to shoppers:
Comfortable
Shoppers need to feel mentally and physically safe and secure from the moment they enter the store until the time they leave.
Easy
Shoppers’ brains want to expend as little energy as possible. Intuitive, easy to navigate shopping environments are paramount.
Novel
Only the new, interesting, intriguing or surprising gets shoppers’ attention in a crowded, cluttered, and highly-distracting world.
Tactile
Shopping physical stores should be a visceral, emotional, sensorydriven experience, delivering immersive shopping moments.
Engaging
Shoppers want to be more than just a spectator; they want to be a player in the shopping game and look for opportunities to engage and become part of the story.
R ewarding
Today’s shoppers crave the personal satisfaction of making the right choices and being recognized for it. They seek a sense of accomplishment, confidence, or pride.
Methodology: Our Retail Labs team uses the CENTER Model levers to unearth quantitative data expressing shoppers’ expectation of an industry. Each factor is scored 0-5: 0 as least important, 5 as most important. We compare these results to the qualitative data (also represented 0-5) gleaned from the reality of how companies deliver on each of the six levers. This gap is the sweet spot for industry improvement and opportunity.
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
3
MaxMedia Retail Labs Industry Report:
grocery
Study conducted by MaxMedia Retail Labs in October 2015 Participants: 100 Americans, 18-65 years of age, who were asked to reflect upon their experiences at their primary grocery store.
what we know
Grocery shoppers switch from a logical, “cross it off my list” mindset to an intuitive, emotion-driven mindset 23 minutes into the shopping trip. At 40 minutes, nearly all shoppers are shopping (and buying) in intuitive mode¹.
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
U.S. restaurant and bar sales growth is outpacing grocery store sales 4:1 according to the U.S. Commerce Department, and many grocers are transforming their stores to offer more prepared food options².
4
what we found comfortable
easy
rewarding
Grocery shoppers expect an engaging, tactile, novel and rewarding experience, but expect to sacrifice comfort and ease in the process. The reality is that grocery shoppers encounter a more comfortable and slightly easier experience than anticipated. The experience falls considerably short on tactile, and somewhat short on rewarding, engaging and novel.
engaging
novel
Industry Expectation tactile
Industry Performance
Image 1.0 Shopper expectations of the grocery stores vs. the reality of grocery store experiences.
Conclusions What is it that keeps shoppers coming back in grocery? As it relates to both happiness and loyalty, reward is most closely correlated. A rewarding experience for shoppers makes them feel good about their purchase. This might include the satisfaction of saving money and being a hero to their family, or it could reflect the social good experienced by patronizing a store that touts local, sustainable food practices. “I was looking for a particular item, and the store manager ordered it and kept it in stock for me. She went over and above my thinking of customer service. I need this item for my specialized diet, and I felt like a special customer.”
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
5
“The best experience I remember having was when I was able to get in and out of the store very quickly, because I had to get what I needed in order to cook dinner for my family that night. I was able to find the boneless chicken breast they had on sale and some sweet potatoes, and made in back it time to finish cooking and relax a little before my family went crazy looking for their dinner.” “It’s all difficult to carry, and to load into the car. Once, the grocery manager sent one of his staff along with us to our home to help us unload, and even bring the groceries into our kitchen.”
What is it that keeps shoppers away in grocery? An uncomfortable shopping environment is the single biggest factor in creating frustration and churn for grocery shoppers. An uncomfortable environment in grocery might be something like messy, cluttered aisles, long checkout lines, or an uncomfortable temperature. It might also be something more subtle like the rejection or embarrassment shoppers feel if their coupons aren’t accepted or the feeling of being watched by loss prevention resources.
“I hadn’t been to this store before, and right away I was turned off. The store had a strange, unpleasant smell, and it distracted me the whole time. I had trouble concentrating because of the smell. It put me in a bad mood and I just couldn’t understand how the issue wasn’t addressed.”
“They were unorganized, not very friendly, and it was an overall chaotic experience. I got a lot for what I spent, but it was not worth waiting in the long lines or maneuvering around all of the people.”
“At a store, an employee was watching me like a hawk, and made me feel as though they thought I wouldn’t be able to afford the items in my cart and that I would steal them.”
“A trip to a grocery store where the parking lot was in poor repair and the store itself smelled funky was my worst experience. I was unable to find anything other than a few basic items on my list, and received no assistance from employees, as there didn’t seem to be any working there. All the products on the shelves seemed damaged or near expiration, and the store was crowded with unsavory customers.”
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
6
what we think Grocers would benefit by catering to the non-conscious drivers of today’s shopper. The biggest inhibitor of return visits is lack of comfort. Providing a relaxing, sensory-rich environment is key to making a shopper feel comfortable and “safe” inside the store. The goal should be to create an environment that keeps the shopper in-store long enough to “ditch the list” and start shopping emotionally (23 minutes according to research). This will increase the size of the basket and enhance the positive sentiment of the grocery store brand. Technologies designed to help make more informed choices in the aisle are important to ease the burden of grocery shopping for today’s time-challenged consumer. Shoppers today are accustomed to doing research on the products they buy, and grocery is no different. Giving them opportunities in-store to dig deeper on certain products (ingredients, sustainability, popularity, peer reviews) will help alleviate the paralyzing paradox of choice. Additionally, frictionless payment, digital coupons and other technologies should be on grocers’ radars to help streamline the checkout process. 1 Medical Daily: The Psychology of Shopping: How Grocery Stores Make Rational Spending Nearly Impossible 2 U.S. Census Bureau News: Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, September 2015
© 2015 MaxMedia | www.maxmedia.com
7
