The future of food manufacturing in a digital world relies on rapid ecommerce innovation to provide consistent, personalized experiences for customers from every touchpoint. The global pandemic has motivated shoppers worldwide to buy food and essential products online now and in the future. This era of change presents an enormous opportunity for CPG food manufacturers to enter the world of direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecommerce and thrive beyond their wildest dreams.
The overall landscape of online sales continue to grow, Statista states, which finds nearly 14% of U.S. total retail sales are estimated to come from ecommerce channels by 2021. Also, the market is seeing an 18% increase in the total number of online orders and higher spending per order, Digital Commerce 360 Research reports. And in Q2 2020, $1 of every $5 spent by U.S. consumers came from online orders. This thrust can be an attractive avenue for both new up-and-coming food manufacturing brands who need an easy entry into a market and legacy brands who are eager to grow their online presence while nurturing their customer journey.
The DTC landscape is shifting consumer’s attention, giving food manufacturers an urgent need to implement a reliable commerce cloud marketplace solution fast. But what should food manufacturers look for, and how can they innovate to reduce the risk of being irrelevant?
4 Benefits of Ecommerce Features
As customer behavior changes, there is only one way to catch up on long-predicted ecommerce trends to meet needs quickly: food manufacturers need to consolidate their processes with a robust but straightforward ecommerce solution to meet consumer’s needs today and in the future.
1) Inventory/Supply Chain Management
- Facilitate brand and channel partner collaboration with shared tools, integrated planning, and strategic budgeting
- Offer relevant and personalized digital experiences for buying and engaging channel partners
- Manage inventory in multiple, concurrent units of measure and inventory formats
2) Order Management
- Visually manage workflows with automating order fulfillment, payment capture, and invoices with supply chain workflows
- Customize logic behind workflows with simple drag-and-drop tools
- Process payments automatically and deliver on complex orders while efficiently managing cancellations and returns
3) Sales/Operations
- Know and grow your audiences using AI-powered insights
- Deliver hyper-relevant messages throughout the customer journey
- Offer seamless commerce experiences and integrated customer support to turn your buyers into brand advocates
- Expand your social marketing capabilities to take your brand’s social presence to new heights
- Power your multichannel marketing with customer journey maps
4) Pricing & Promotions
- Automate processes for accurate delivery and payment
- Manage complex customer pricing to accommodate contractual pricing details
- Handle promotional pricing issues connected to physical logistics
- Implement automated price optimization based on demand
Not All Platforms and Solutions are Made Equal
Ugly Drinks, a sparkling water, flavored seltzer, and energy drink company, told Food Manufacture that DTC has always been part of its omnichannel strategy, and because of that, their UK DTC is up more than 500% year-on-year. “We’re lucky to have built the infrastructure and systems that allowed us to scale quickly,” says Hugh Thomas, CEO. “With more people engaging with our brand online, we can be nimble and compete with larger competitors. At the same time, we know we need to play in multiple channels, so we continue to push forward with our omnichannel approach.”
When it comes to providing a stable and reliable platform for merchandising and marketing, experience management, multi-site management, and location, nothing compares to the power of Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Online multi-vendor grocery marketplaces, like the big food manufacturers ecommerce platforms currently running Salesforce Commerce Cloud, use process automation tools like order fulfillment, payment capture, and invoices with supply chain workflows to integrate with an organization’s existing systems for maximum efficiency.
Online store builder software like Quick Start D2C is explicitly designed for food manufacturing companies that are selling products through distributors and are affected by the changes caused by COVID-19.
Quick Start Grocery allows food manufacturers to sell products online DTC in a matter of weeks, not months. Launching an online shop rapidly keeps pace with fast-changing consumer behavior, taking advantage of new buying trends.
The future of food manufacturer’s DTC channels is here, waiting to be reimagined. Launch your ecommerce the right way and compete successfully in the digital economy.
OSF Digital has a deep understanding of pain points, challenges, and objectives in the supermarket retail industry. OSF Digital delivers some of the most extensive projects in the commerce space, helping manage multiple brands within a single site. Our solutions can improve customer service, delivery process, customer satisfaction while providing a positive and personalized customer experience with a full range of payment options.
With more than a decade of experience delivering business strategies and specific commerce solutions across different industries and markets, OSF Digital possesses a deep understanding of the unique requirements of the grocery sector. Contact OSF’s team of experts to learn how we can help accelerate your online grocery sales growth.
