The online grocery market has been growing steadily for years now. People worldwide have grown to love the convenience, choice, speed, service, and much more. But like many others, this is a market that has become supercharged by the pandemic.
Almost overnight, people had little choice but to order their groceries online and did so in astonishing numbers. Since the pandemic has subsided, some have returned to the supermarkets. Many others, though, have preferred to continue ordering groceries online, to the extent that globally, the online grocery market is one of the biggest in commerce.
Customer experience is key to differentiation in this crowded space, populated by traditional supermarkets, specialist delivery firms, grocery start-ups, and more. To deliver a CX that encourages loyalty, the right technology platform is essential. And this means deploying a highly customised tech stack - composable commerce - rather than making do with a monolithic, legacy commerce platform.
The online grocery market - where are we now?
Recent Spryker research revealed that 60% of U.K. consumers are already doing some food shopping online. Furthermore, within two years, one in four Brits sees themselves buying most of their groceries online. This is a little more advanced than other countries, but make no mistake - the U.S., Germany, and other countries will all catch up.
The future of grocery shopping is very much online. Although some shoppers still enjoy supermarket shopping, this is not sustainable. Younger generations are very comfortable grocery shopping online, and it's easy to see a future in which online is the most dominant way of grocery shopping.
For any grocery store that still places greater emphasis on its physical stores, this is a growing problem that will not go away. While physical stores aren't going to disappear overnight, it becomes ever more apparent that the key battleground for grocery shopping will take place online. Providers - whether traditional supermarkets, delivery firms, niche food sellers, or others - must differentiate and offer their customers the very best experience possible.
Technology and customer experience
With so many different types of company in the online grocery market, owning customer access is hugely important. It is essential to improving CX and an advantage traditional supermarkets have over pure delivery services. Owning customer access presents an enormous opportunity for supermarkets to differentiate, focusing on what they sell and how they sell it.
Achieving this is possible - indeed, some supermarkets are already well advanced in this area - but it's highly challenging when attempting to use the cumbersome and ageing technology infrastructures still operational at many of the bigger grocery retailers. These platforms are just not suited to the demands of modern commerce. They are inflexible and make adding the additional services and features that really differentiate on CX much harder.
A far more effective approach is for online grocers to adopt a modular route to commerce. This composable commerce methodology involves selecting best-of-breed solutions to 'compose' a highly customised tech stack. This allows a grocery retailer to roll out those new features, engage with customers using their preferred medium, and even offer unique pricing according to that customer's preferences and needs.
The role of composable commerce
While this is more natural for modern grocery delivery companies, it can all feel like a major shift for supermarkets. While some have adapted reasonably well to the online grocery market, they have mostly relied on legacy systems. For the new order in online groceries, a world of CX, differentiation, and agility, those old systems will not be fit for purpose.
It's a composable approach that significantly improves a grocer's ability to deliver first-class CX, and there are many other benefits too. It is far easier to use best-of-breed applications and to replace or move them as the business needs change, all without affecting the rest of the architecture.
This seamless integration and use of open standards are vital. It makes it simple to deploy out-of-the-box components and ensures no lengthy and costly vendor lock-in. Furthermore, composable commerce offers unparalleled agility and scalability as a grocery retailer's business changes - and it will change in such a dynamic market.
Delivering unique experiences
Customers in the online grocery market want unique experiences; the only way to deliver them is by being flexible enough to adopt the modern technologies that drive innovation. The flexibility of composable commerce and a customised tech stack is crucial in delivering a personalised CX and providing differentiation in a crowded online grocery market.
Across the U.S. and other countries worldwide, consumers are shopping online using multiple channels. This makes omnichannel retail essential, not preferable, and makes differentiation and personalization in CX even more crucial. The key to all of this lies with composable commerce.
Alexander Graf is Co-Founder & Co-CEO of marketplace experts Spryker and author of the bestselling book, The E-Commerce Book.
In our ninth Tech Times exclusive, Tech Times talks with Spryker Co-Founder and Co-CEO Alexander Graf about how Spryker is redefining commerce software.
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