Digital Consumers Demand UK Grocers Improve Online, In-Store Shopping Experiences

The past 20 months have given an unprecedented boost to digital trends, and the grocery business is one of the many industries riding the digital wave.

In the United Kingdom, for example, consumers’ appetite for online grocery shopping has spiked since the onset of the pandemic — mainly due to the ease and convenience it offers, as well as concerns over contracting the virus when shopping in stores.

In a PYMNTS report on what U.K. consumers expect from their grocery shopping experiences, ease and convenience were the main reasons 66.2% of U.K. grocery shoppers said they are continuing to buy groceries online — a trend that Madeline Aufseeser, omnichannel grocery and drugstores leader at ACI Worldwide, said will likely continue well after the pandemic has ended.

Read more: What UK Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences

“Plus, they no longer have the patience to go into a store and deal with the friction of waiting in line to check out or spending the time walking the aisles…,” Aufseeser said in an interview.

There are also no limitations on when consumers can shop or “what payment methods they use because their credentials are stored within an app or whatever device they’re using,” added Aufseeser, whose payments systems company, ACI, collaborated with PYMNTS on the report.

However, U.K. grocery shoppers still prefer to buy perishable food items like fresh produce and meat in-store. Aufseeser said this is an area which delivery services have yet to conquer because consumers are not yet at the comfort level where they let someone else pick out their fresh produce, “especially if it’s not the same person who’s shopping for you all the time.”

UK Shoppers Are Loyal

Loyalty programs and other special offerings are very popular with U.K. customers, and grocers have had to use these schemes to enhance the value proposition they offer repeat shoppers.

Data from the PYMNTS report revealed that 63% of U.K. shoppers use at least one grocer’s loyalty program — and while 44% of U.K. grocery shoppers spend more at stores with loyalty programs, 45% said the presence of a loyalty program plays a role in where they shop.

See also: Personalization Key Ingredient of Pret A Manger’s New ‘Pret Perks’ Loyalty Program

There is a stark difference with the U.S., however, as the research showed that British shoppers are 17% more likely to belong to grocers’ customer loyalty programs than U.S. shoppers.

Aufseeser partly attributed the difference to higher credit card use in the U.S., adding American consumers are more accustomed to using their credit cards on grocery purchases because of the benefits associated with them.

In the U.K., however, these advantages are rare. Most shoppers (63%) use debit cards more than any other payment method when buying groceries, meaning they are more likely to be enticed by benefits offered by merchants through a loyalty program.

Another difference is that the U.S. marketplace is home to a large variety of stores competing for customers compared to the U.K., where there are only a handful of top grocery brands, Aufseeser explained.

“In the U.S., consumers will shop from different brands within a particular month, so they’re not loyal to any one store, [while in] the U.K., we see much greater loyalty to a particular grocer,” Aufseeser said.

Personalized Omnichannel Commerce

With the growing uncertainty around the spread of the pandemic, grocery stores and brands will have to find ways to bridge the gap between strictly in-person shopping and digital shopping opportunities.

According to Aufseeser, this is where ACI comes into play, given its ability to provide solutions to grocers and ensure that the experience remains consistent across all channels, both online, in-store or from any device that shoppers are using.

As a result of that, it becomes easier for consumers to move seamlessly from one channel to another, and they’re able to redeem an offer they saw on their phone in-store or redeem an e-mailed offer online, for example.

Technologies like tokenization have also helped to make the shopping experience more personable, allowing companies to link disparate types of data together — like stock-keeping unit (SKU) level and payment data — to give grocers a much richer and individualized picture about their consumers behaviors.

In terms of changes to payment acceptance, Aufseeser said the omnichannel experience has broadened the choice of tender and alternative payments methods (APM), such as digital coupons, QR codes, benefit cards and virtual gift cards.

While there may be higher risks associated with digital fraud, she said there’s a trade off when shopping online because there’s less theft than what is seen in brick-and-mortar stores.

One-Stop Shopping, Faster Deliveries

Aufseeser said ACI is starting to see a growing trend toward one-stop shopping as grocers’ partner with other companies to offer different types of products and attract more in-store consumers.

Given the uncertainty around the pandemic, there will also be a plethora of different types of pickup and delivery arrangements available in the market, she added. These are driven both by the convenience these options present to the consumer as well as labor shortages that are happening worldwide.

For example, some companies are setting up dark warehouses and using them as aggregation points to buy goods from different grocers to meet consumers’ needs and be able to ensure a faster delivery service.

As Aufseeser said, “I think that the omnichannel scenario and being able to shop online has changed the trajectory of where things are going for grocers.”