Shopper marketing blog

In the second month of their online grocery shopping tracker, CheckoutSmart continues to bring fresh insights into this fast-growing, fast-changing market.

NB The numbers below are deliberately obscured, if you would like to know the answers please contact us.

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:

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:

After our Sainsburys Ratings and Reviews blog last month we've been digging around the other main UK supermarket websites.  We know that Tesco don't currently show Ratings & Reviews on their website, so when we popped the hood on their site and had a look around we were surprised to discover that their ratings & reviews were actually there but hidden from the public.

To save you the time finding and collating for yourselves, we’ve pulled it together into some nice summary charts below. For your free brand report for your category, just get in touch and we’ll happily send you one over.  

Figure 1: Infographic summary of Tesco.com ratings & reviews

After analysing the shopping basket data from than 500,000 grocery receipts uploaded by our members in the Decembers of 2013 - 2017, we can see that on average there is a steady rise in sales in the four days leading up to 23^rd December.

The team at leading Shopper Marketing Agency CheckoutSmart have produced their Christmas sales forecast for 2018. With Christmas Day falling on a Tuesday in 2018, it is predicted that many shoppers will leave their Christmas grocery shop until the weekend before, with an expected surge on Saturday 22^nd and Sunday 23^rd December. This will allow shoppers to take advantage of final Christmas promotional activity and stock up on perishables and fresh produce before the big day. Christmas Eve, will then see a dramatic fall-off in predicted sales at just 5.6% of the week, as everyone settles down at home or heads to friends and family for the festive period. 

Coca-Cola retains their crown as the UK’s favourite online supermarket brand

CheckoutSmart, Europe’s No.1 grocery cashback app has released the UK’s Top 100 Online Grocery Brands report based on our online data. Once again, Coca-Cola was on sparkling form accounting for 66p in every £100 spent online by shoppers. This is an important club because £16.15 of every £100 spent is accounted for by the Top 100 brands.

Who else was a winner? Aptamil baby milk is growing up well as the fastest climber within the top 25, moving up 9 places to 19^th. The No.1 Beer brand was Stella Artois, up 14 places to 32^nd closely followed by Fosters up 12 places at 38^th. Their perfect accompaniment Walkers Crisps was a new entrant in the Top Ten at 9^th.