With the advent of the internet, it was possible to market products to a vast area. Online stores soon started and sold everything from consumer electronics to groceries. Online stores operate by being a middleman between actual producers and consumers. But some producers might themselves have their own online store. The online store just needs a good user interface and effective and efficient functionalities to operate successfully, although modern online stores also engage in optimization services to give a good customer experience.
Offline grocery stores have been traditionally preferred for grocery buying and consumption. But as there is a lot of sales potential in online businesses, grocery store owners want to shift their business model. The main problem with selling groceries online is that most of them are perishable. To counter this, the supply chain must be very strong. As many people buy groceries almost on a daily basis, consistency of service must be maintained. By providing good service, consumers can be drawn to the store that sells groceries online.
Methods to Bring Consumers to Your Online Grocery Store
A recent survey conducted revealed that as much as 20 percent of grocers wanted to shift to an online business model. Online sales have soared from 85 million US dollars to over 1.3 billion in just 5 years for grocery products. But it is difficult to draw consumers to your online store, especially in the beginning. Following are some tips to draw your customers to the online grocery store.
Keep Your Online Store as Mobile-Friendly as Possible
Most people in the present era do not use desktops for online shopping. As revealed, the age group which does shopping online is 25 to 34 years old, where mobile devices are popular. Grocery store owners should understand that websites load differently on mobile devices and take steps to fix this problem. It has been established that 61 percent of users would leave the store if it wasn’t friendly, so this is a very essential step. They can be optimized to function effectively through good web development techniques. Making sure the site is responsive and fast also helps.
Simplify the Checkout Process
The checkout process refers to the process that the consumer follows after deciding they have finished shopping. Extended checkout processes annoy the customer. This is scientifically tested, and 27 percent of people “abandoned their cart” so to speak, when they thought the checkout process was complicated. This is why simplifying the checkout process is one of the most effective ways to attract customers to an online grocery store. The simplification process involves eliminating unnecessary steps to the checkout process and minimizing the number of redirects.
Implement SEO on Your Site
SEO stands for search engine optimization and involves all the activities that help place the website into the top ranks of most search engines. Search engines rank websites based on their search engine algorithms. The SEO process involves figuring out what the algorithm looks for and incorporating that into your website. The algorithms usually look for keywords that are popular and rank websites according to their importance, quality and relevance. A number of factors affect website ranking, so implementing SEO can have a great impact on the number of customers you have to the grocery store website.
Provide Multiple Payment Mechanisms
The online store must implement multiple payment options for its consumers. They must come with reliable and strong security measures. Providing multiple payment methods increases the sales of the store directly, and also encourages people to use mobile services. Mobile devices increasingly incorporate many services like google wallet, apple pay, stripe, wePay and other similar services. Thus mobile devices and payment services mesh well. Together they help bring more consumers to the online grocery store.
Keep the Supply Chain Ready
The supply chain is one of the most important aspects if you are selling online groceries. This is because grocery items are perishable. The orders must be delivered as fresh as possible. This can be done by either hiring a good logistics company to reliably deliver the groceries or you having a method to do it effectively. Even though the highest ordered commodities from grocery stores online are dry foods, even these must be carefully handled. The efficiency with which the products are delivered becomes very important as well.
Offer Coupons and Discounts
This is one of the oldest tactics that work to attract customers to the store and generate a good customer experience. This works in both offline and online environments, but the effect is stronger in online stores. This is because a lot of customization can be done in the online realm. Discounts can be given in festival times to every customer, and exclusive coupons can be given to loyal customers. The decreased prices have a likelihood of making new customers loyal to the online grocery store.
Have a Personalized Call To Action
A call to action (CTA) is an element in the webpage that directs the customer to take a certain action. It has been found that strong calls to action increase the likelihood that customers will follow through with the message. A good example of a call to action may be a button that says “add to cart” or “buy now” on product pages. The online store will have extensive options to personalize these CTA elements. Research of 93000 CTA’s found that personalization of CTA text based on the type of consumer increased sales. The new visitors and regular customers must be given separate calls to action to increase the likelihood of customers buying groceries from the store.
Conclusion
The easy accessibility and strong interconnected nature of the internet online stores have increased in numbers. Although the competition to online stores has risen over the last few decades, there are still ways to attract consumers into online stores. Foodrunner is a Canadian online grocery store that delivers groceries all over Canada. It delivers same day pickup and delivery services and promises to deliver the groceries in less than an hour to its destination.
