Fabric Names Curt Avallone Co-CEO to Tackle eGrocery

Retail fulfillment company Fabric named eCommerce veteran Curt Avallone as its co-CEO.

The appointment comes as Fabric looks to expand its operations worldwide with a focus on eGrocery, according to a Monday (March 25) press release.

“Over the past 30 years, Avallone has collaborated to build new businesses that generate over $8 billion in annual sales and over 30,000 jobs,” the company said in the release. “He launched successful eCommerce divisions at Ahold Delhaize, Giant Eagle and CVS Pharmacy, as well as the H-E-B and Ahold Delhaize fueling divisions.”

Avi “Jack” Jacoby will remain as Fabric’s co-CEO, a position he has held since 2022, according to the release. The company pointed to research by Harvard Business Review that showed that companies with co-CEOs generated an average annual shareholder return of 9.5%, “better than the average of 6.9% for each company’s relevant index.”

PYMNTS Intelligence examined online grocery buying in the report “How Preferred Payment Availability Can Reduce Cart Abandonment,” which found shoppers tend to put their trust in retailers and not marketplaces.

“The results revealed that consumers’ channel preferences vary by retail category,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month. “While often consumers choose to make purchases from online marketplaces rather than retailers’ or brands’ websites or mobile apps, in grocery, shoppers’ behaviors tell a different story.”

According to the report, 44% of consumers prefer retailers’ websites or apps when buying groceries online, while 29% prefer online marketplaces and 24% prefer brands’ sites or apps, suggesting that consumers’ digital loyalty lies with the grocery stores themselves.

Meanwhile, additional research showed that shoppers who engage digitally with grocers tend to spend more than those who do not.

For example, PYMNTS Intelligence’s study “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Catching the Coming eCommerce Wave” found that consumers spend $88 on their average in-store grocery purchases, compared to eGrocery customers, who spend an average of $116.

Additionally, the “Can New Use Cases Drive Consumer Use of Digital Wallets?” edition of the same series of reports showed that grocery shoppers who pay via digital channels, whether in stores or online, typically spend more.

“Specifically, the study found that those using digital wallets to pay for groceries spent $96, on average, on their most recent purchase, while those not using digital wallets spent $92,” PYMNTS wrote.