App Quest

Success has been spotty, but progress is being made.

- John Karolefski

Shoppers can load onto their smartphones a wide variety of popular third-party grocery apps to help them save time and money. Meanwhile, grocers themselves also offer shoppers store apps, which should be the cornerstone of their mobile strategies. The overall idea is to create loyalty to the store as well as helping shoppers save time and money.

How successful have grocers’ apps been?

“I say most shoppers have not downloaded their grocer’s app to their mobile device,” asserts Barry Stone, director of marketing for New York-based Digital Social Retail.

“There are very few grocers, if any, who have an app with more than 5 percent shopper adoption,” notes Mike Grimes, chief revenue officer of Mobee, a Boston-based provider of real-time crowdsourced data and insights for retailers and brands. “Why? Because grocery shoppers won’t use an app unless they have a real compelling reason to do so.”

David Shukri, of Mindtree, agrees, saying, “Anecdotally, I believe penetration of such apps remains relatively low.” The “retail champion” at the Warren, N.J.-based IT services and consulting firm believes that one reason is shopper behavior.

“For many people around the world, loyalty to a specific grocery retailer has never been lower,” he explains. “Many factors contribute to this modern reality. They include the development of the convenience sector, the wealth of price information available at our fingertips, and the disaggregation of the food retail chain, meaning there are now many alternatives available should you prefer never to set foot in a supermarket if you choose not to. Therefore, what would be the upside to engaging with a specific retailer’s app? You might need three or four of them to cover the majority of your grocery spend satisfactorily.”

Promoting Value