How Web Traffic is Driving Brick and Mortar Expansion

People will always want to shop, and that’s not going to change, but the online experience has raised shoppers’ expectations and made them much more discerning, so it behooves all retailers to know their customer that much better.  The Web is providing a much broader, more accurate and real-time picture of exactly who they are and where they live, arming retailers with the information they need to make smarter decisions about physical expansion — the most capital-intensive of investments.

Read more of this insightful article on Forbes here. 

This hybrid retail opportunity creates opportunities not only for retailers but also for the  brands. Data & trends provided by online retailing is a reflection of the offline consumer behavior and is far more accurate and trust-worthy as against data based on surveys and focused groups. 

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• Brick-and-mortar's inherent advantage: In-store relevance.
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Digital Influencers of Brand Selection.

Here is yet another research that supports the need of multi channel marketing initiatives – especially from a digital perspective in the CPG / FMCG space. The fact that consumers have adopted the digital media in their daily life is not lost on anybody; however, it is important to understand that they use it in different ways and with different intentions.

The key for brands, marketers and manufacturers looking to capitalize on digital in the CPG environment, is to identify how each consumer group embraces digital media.

Clearly the 18 - 34 year old consumers are comfortable with digital technology and their use of digital resources has an impact on purchase. What is even more dramatic is the extent to which this group is influenced by product and brand recommendations from bloggers and social networking platforms. In-store digital touch screens and phone applications are also seen to address this group effectively and present immediate, high-impact brand marketing opportunities.

Another plus for marketers is that these digital-savvy consumers are often trendsetters and influencers in their own circles. Word-of-mouth and informal, viral marketing can make a huge impact on those that are fully engaged in digital media.

Download the SymphonyIRI Group Point of View report: Digital Dimension: Consumers Embrace Digital Media with Diverse Approaches from here (PDF)

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CPG & eCommerce - the new approach.

"The CPG of the future will rely on a sales ecosystem that integrates online interaction with in-store marketing. That will require sophisticated digital capabilities throughout the business, across all functions, including marketing, sales, R&D and supply chain. The companies that win will be the ones that aggressively exploit e-commerce models, integrating digital deep into their businesses to do so."

Really enjoyed reading the article titled "We are all eCommerce Companies Now" on the HBR  by Bonin Bough, Vice President of Global Media and Consumer Engagement at Kraft Foods. 

Mr. Bough's article is a validation of the business model created by us at AaramShop to address the traditional challenges faced by FMCG / CPG companies in leveraging the opportunities offered by eCommerce. For too long CPG companies have either tried to emulate the traditional eCommerce models (and failed) or have just kept away from it completely. However, now with the fast changing media consumption habits of the consumers reaching consumers at point-of-purchase is no longer simply a battle for shelf space, but a war to connect meaningfully across a wide range of digital platforms and delivery mechanisms. 

Read the article here to understand the opportunities offered by the hybrid commerce models. 

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Since the great majority of CPG purchasing occurs in-store, how important is digital in the path to purchase?

The title of this post is the question that Joel Rubenson asked Catherine Roe, head of CPG for Google. What stumped me was the sheer volume of "interest / passions" related searches, which just goes to indicate the opportunities for the CPG marketers.

Catherine reports that searches on Google.com related to recipes are up 38% in 2011 over 2010. And it’s a huge number. It’s 7.8 billion recipe-related searches on Google.com.

Just to give you a perspective, there are more searches around food and recipes than there is travel, beauty, and luxury. It is absolutely huge. The iPad or her computer or her phone has replaced her cookbook. So, she’s doing that research ahead of time on Google and then going to either a recipe site or a food site or whatever it might be to get the tips, to get the health information, to get the ingredients to get everything she needs. 

Read the interview in parts here

Related articles

• Procter to Rely More on Digital Marketing to Boost Brand Sales.
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• Do CPGs need to up the ante and invest more in mobile?
• 1 in 1100 CPG Ads are clicked.
• CPG Marketing Trends: Social Media in 2012

The Flight From Conversation.

Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at M.I.T wrote this wonderful article in the NYT where she says that we’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.

We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. 

At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else; it’s hard, but it can be done.

Read more of her insightful article here.

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