Exciting news! The 2022 Grocery Omnichannel Retail Index (“Index”) will be released mid-September by the OSF Digital team. This Index has been updated from 2019 (pre-pandemic) and the number of food retailers doubled to 50. Our consultants tested website, mobile, store, and cross-channel features and functions to find the latest best practices and benchmarks for food retailers.
With the current inflation, every dollar counts for customers and food retailers alike. Making it easy for the customer to make changes in cart and checkout are important and can help capture every dollar. In grocery, the cart and checkout experiences are often more complex due to fulfillment options, substitutions, and order updates after checkout. This year’s benchmarking study identified opportunities in the cart and checkout that can reduce friction and drive revenue.
100% of the food retailers in the Index allow customers to edit quantity in the cart and 98% save products in the cart so if a shopper leaves the items will still be in cart when the shopper returns to the site. Both capabilities contribute to a seamless cart experience and help reduce abandonment. But it’s surprising that only 20% offer the ability to move items from the cart to a “save for later” status; whereas in other verticals, the adoption rate is 40%. The option of having “save for later” gives the customer a way to find a previously considered product and simply add to the cart instead of having to spend time searching for it.
Example of editing in cart which can increase basket size
It’s impressive that 58% of food retailers recommend additional products in the cart before checkout, up from 35% in 2019. Suggesting complimentary products or popular items bought together is an effective upselling tool to increase basket size and make the shopping experience more helpful for the customer.
Another opportunity to increase basket size is to use threshold messaging. The Index found that only 32% of the grocers benchmarked have any messaging about spending more on something to get some type of promotion. For example, if a shopper is told if they spend $12 more to get free shipping, it is likely that the messaging will motivate the shopper to add more items to the cart
During the checkout process, food retailers offer convenience and flexibility. It’s noteworthy that 90% of the benchmarked food retailers allow customers to change delivery window and 76% of them allow customers to add additional items to the order after checkout but prior to pick up or delivery.
One disappointment during checkout is the lack of ability to contact customer service. Only 16% of the benchmarked grocers provide live chat, phone number or click-to-call options for customers, a missed opportunity to connect at a decision-making point in the shopping journey.
Making the cart and checkout experience seamless and having conveniences like changing delivery times or adding to the order after checkout go a long way with today’s omnichannel consumers. Learn more tasty tips from the Grocery Omnichannel Retail Index mid-September and if you need help, contact us!
