Hitching Business To The Online Wagon

E-retail is giving tough competition to physical stores, gaining ground in revenue and visibility as consumers distance themselves from the traditional supermarket model.

- Rajiv Kumar

The competition in the food retail market has increased in recent years. Traditional food retailers are facing fierce pressure from alternative channels, including warehouse clubs, supercenters, drug stores, mass retailers and convenience stores, as well as online retailers and grocery delivery services. Let’s take a look into how e-retail, in terms of food and grocery, is winning brownie points.

Success story of e-retail so far

Virtual baskets don’t necessarily mirror physical ones, with the relationship being inversely proportional in nature. As consumers warm up to the idea of e-grocery, retailers are realizing that some categories of products are simply better suited for e-commerce than others. This leads to discrepancies in adaptation rates varying from market to market. While immediate use items like fresh and frozen foods, condiments and beverages are slower in adoption for the western market, the abundance of fresh produce farming leads to a spike in purchase of these products for East. There is also a tremendous opportunity among niche consumer segments — especially in the healthy eating space and other categories that may be more difficult to find on instore shelves. E-commerce is well suited to specialty retailing because it allows companies to offer greater product selection in a category than would typically be available in brick-and-mortar stores – a factor that forms an integral benchmark of globalization in markets of India and her neighbours.

Trends that contribute to the success of food e-commerce