Shopper marketing blog

As we were planning our expansion into Spain, we decided to have a look at the grocery retail landscape. For us, that meant having a look at the online supermarket product ratings and reviews for FMCG brands. Our focus in this post is on Carrefour the French-based retailer but we also looked closely at Dia and El Corte Ingles where we can also deliver ratings and reviews for brands. 

To undertake the review of online product reviews in Spain within Carrefour, the first step was to scrape the website data, then attribute the data to brand and manufacturer. Once this was done, the analysis could begin.

A short summary of our observations is contained below together with Excel and PDF downloads of the category and brand level data. More data is available down to product level with many more measures, please contact us if you would like to know more.

In March we released our first list of Digital Shelf Analytics providers. Since then we've had lots of contact from and conversations with more providers, so we thought it best to update our list.

We've added five new providers below: Convert Group, DataGram, DataWeave, Detail Online, and Syndigo. We've also added Import.IO for those who want to go for themselves as they provide the base technology that some of the DSA companies use.

If you are a Digital Shelf Analytics provider who covers multiple supermarkets in multiple countries and isn't represented below, then feel free to get in touch to be included in our next update. 

In the future, we plan to contact providers directly to get more information on their offerings. If you wish to be the representative for your firm then please fill in your details here: Sign up to represent your company

Updated May 2021

We had a tremendous response to our first post in post in March 2021. Since then we have found no less than 9 more providers to add to our list as well as New kids on the block Brand Nudge. All the tables below have been updated with the latest information available. 

Join Andrew Pearl VP Strategy and Insight EMEA at eCommerce performance analytics company Profitero and Paul Lees our Group Managing Director at CheckoutSmart, as they discuss fascinating original research on grocery ratings and reviews.

This study was specifically undertaken in the UK amongst over 3,700 online grocery shoppers to support the understanding of FMCG leaders and eCommerce teams, by answering their questions:

As a leading digital shopper marketing agency, we are always looking to extend our understanding of the ever-changing grocery shopping environment. Recently we undertook a survey of regular grocery shoppers to understand how they shop on Tesco online and what they think about their experience.

The feedback tells us that there is opportunity for Tesco.com to grow faster but also some significant threats in the wings. Everything we asked has been collated into a comprehensive 20-page report which is available to download. We have pulled the highlights together into a summary SWOT analysis below, together with a few examples of the charts in the download.

If you would like the full report it is available to download here.

We surveyed members of CheckoutSmart to understand their experiences of shopping during Covid-19 and their views on how their behaviour will change when things "more or less return to normal". In total 4,324 members responded, over 3,100 of whom are also online grocery shoppers. 

The survey focused on how their grocery shopping experience had changed pre and during Covid-19 restrictions and their personal expectations on how their behaviour will change going forward. This blog article contains a summary of the most relevant results. More detail on specific topics may be available, please contact us to hear more.

The most significant finding is that online shopping could still grow even faster post Covid if retailers can address the two major concerns shoppers have of slot availability (which is surely just a matter of time) and the cost of delivery which must surely come down with scale and the the recent move by Amazon. 

With all the pressure from retailers and the fact that many brands have postponed their FMCG NPD launches until the second half of the year, we thought it would be helpful to review the shopper marketing options available to support NPD in supermarkets.

For those new to working with the major supermarket retailers in the UK, navigating your way through the variety of shopper marketing options can seem like the proverbial minefield. We've spent the best many years working for FMCG suppliers and supporting them as an agency. With our collective experience, we have broken down the pros and cons of each option in the hopes it will help you identify the best course for your product's unique marketing challenge.

We've grouped our thoughts under the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself when you are planning a shopper marketing campaign:

It's obvious when you think about it, that for online grocery shoppers selecting products to put in their basket, product Rating out of 5 is always more important than the number of Reviews, right?

Well, wrong actually and not just wrong occasionally, wrong most of the time. From our research of 3,710 online supermarket shoppers we know that when the average Ratings for two similar products are different by as much as 0.3 eg 4.2 vs 4.5, then the number of Reviews is much more important in product choice. Let me give you an example:

Q. What happens when the government says "stay at home"?

A. People get up early and go to the supermarket!

Kantar* have just said that grocery sales were up 20.6% in March to their highest ever level, peaking 16th - 19th March. From our analysis of shopper's receipts submitted to us as part of cashback claims, we can see that they were up much earlier than usual that week, probably to "avoid the crowds" or just get there when items are in stock. This happened again the week after, when the restrictions were increased as the chart below illustrates:

As we go through a surge in online shopping, now is the perfect time to ensure your brands get their fair share of sales both now and in the future. Of course you should ensure you have the right images and descriptions, as these form "the basics" of eCommerce. It is also fundamental to your success to offer the undecided a perspective from their fellow shoppers through Ratings & Reviews. Genuine shopper product reviews delivered from validated buyers directly to the retailer sites, without any moderation on a specific sku are the best way of doing this and will make an immediate impact to sales.

Delivering Ratings & Reviews