How Latest Trends in Grocery Ecommerce Influence Packaging

Grocery ecommerce continues its growth momentum and shows no signs of slowing down

For many grocery retailers and brands, being online is no longer an option to grow, but an integral part of the consumer journey. By 2023, the CPG ecommerce is expected to register 70% of total organic growth, while today 53% of offline purchases are influenced by digital, according to Zia Daniell Wigder, Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer GroceryShop.

Product greatness crosses over to various consumer demographics

Consumers can no longer be simply segmented by demographics as greatness in product quality, content and design start appealing to consumers across age, zip code, ethnic origin, even income bracket. The view was echoed by Jordana Kier, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, LOLA.

Less is more

Limited and curated product assortment is considered an important strategy to run an efficient and profitable business. Boxed, the online and mobile membership-free wholesale retailer, carries limited SKUs of only ~1700 items to enable easy selection and large baskets. Its private label Prince & Spring (P&S) is one brand across many categories and, according to Chieh Huang, Co-Founder and CEO, Boxed, it has built a large following based on quality and whimsical brand.

Frictionless experience becomes the cornerstone of ecommerce

In the age of experiential marketing, when it comes to the customer touch points from product selection to mobile marketing to fulfillment, there still are many walls to break down to enable a real frictionless consumer experience. Carlos Garcia, Industry Manager CPG-Retail, Facebook, believes that there should be no more than 9 steps to order and reorder the 10 trillion spend on consumer good each year. Focusing on those consumer moments to trigger purchase is exactly what Mars Wrigley has on its digital marketing agenda, according to Heather Kang, Global VP, Digital Demand.

Loyalty must be earned in this age of digital shoppers

E-retailers are not only setting up subscription service, personalized offers and cash back rewards, but also constantly improving their understanding of consumers and feeding their learnings back into the optimization of these loyalty triggers. Mike Molitor, Head of eCommerce and Loyalty shared Raley’s Mission of ‘moving Raley’s business to proactive, ongoing, and more predictable customer-centric relationship metrics, making Raley’s indispensable to customers’ lives’.

Technologies and partnerships become crucial for growing grocery ecommerce

Most grocery retailers and CPG companies keep evaluating a long list of different technologies and partnerships that will help them on this journey.ⁱ For example, strategic partnership is one of the key triggers in turning Royal Canin from a pet food provider to a pet food partner, with products available at Amazon, Walmart, and Chewy, without forgetting their strategic partnership with Alibaba in China. Startups can also contribute to success in grocery ecommerce, with a couple of innovative platforms worth staying on your radar - a personalized mobile messaging platform for brands by Attentive, and a commerce platform connecting riders with products by Cargo.

So how can brands leverage packaging in achieving ecommerce goals?

Optimize for ecommerce

With the goal to provide customers with minimal, protective and functional packaging, Amazon launched the Frustration-Free Packaging Program.ⁱⁱ In China, JD established China Ecommerce and Logistics Packaging Standard Alliance and brought brands and packaging partners together to address ecommerce challenges with packaging.ⁱⁱⁱ As brands, are your products ready for these standards in ecommerce packaging?

Decide omni-channel vs designed-for-ecommerce packaging

To be or not to be? This is a question many decision makers in packaging and ecommerce marketing ponder. As brands look for opportunities to differentiate, to create optimized consumer product experience and capture incremental growth across channels, designed-for-ecommerce package certainly can be a strategic option. Tide, as an example, has reimagined its classic liquid detergent with a new Eco-Box package containing an ultra-concentrated formula designed for ecommerce.^iv

Adopt digital ways in packaging

Agility has been a frequently mentioned word during GroceryShop. In FMCG industry, where exploring, testing and sampling are critical in driving awareness and converting sales, those packaging partners who can deliver solutions in digital ways can no doubt support brands better.

‘Digital ways’ can be applied in concept visualization, product development (e.g. digital simulation), prototyping, to printing and converting. Digital ways also enable personalization in consumer experience and loyalty programs through “smart and connected” packaging such as unique QR codes.

Streamline packaging innovation

Packaging innovations can be incremental and seamlessly integrated into the existing manufacturing set-up. New materials, process innovation and digital ways can all help brands to achieve just that. Openness to explore and teaming up with capable partners can make packaging innovation for ecommerce a lot easier.
Amcor is proud to be part of this journey to bring positive changes to packaging in grocery ecommerce. Our new ecommerce laboratories are only the latest added capability proving that Amcor is ready to help customers harness significant online sales growth.^v

Citations:
ⁱ groceryshop.com
ⁱⁱ aboutamazon.com, Ensuring your product arrives undamaged and intact - Certifying packaging with Amazon
ⁱⁱⁱ Amcor.com, Amcor becomes founding member in ecommerce alliance in China
^iv news.pg.com, P&G Thinks Inside the Box with New Tide Eco-Box
^v Amcor.com, Amcor opens ecommerce laboratories to help optimise customer packaging