GroceryShop SpringMeetup by Shoptalk: Meeting the world of retail
In the absence of Shoptalk in Las Vegas, the event has become a digital platform for one-to-one meetings and tabletalks. Unlike many digital events, this networking platform was very pragmatic and therefore effective. We had the opportunity to discuss with a good number of trade experts, startups and retailers, through more than twenty 15-minute meetings, and two workshops on the future of e-commerce.
Obviously the pandemic was at the heart of the discussions. But the main topic was to fully understand how trade will evolve and what habits consumers will keep in the long term.
Fabric, a supplier of solutions to automate warehouses, has been able to come back to the explosion of requests it receives. These requests are made to transform part of the supermarket or hypermarket sales areas into a logistics micro hub. These mini hubs make it possible to prepare online orders in less than an hour, whether for delivery or drive. Timereaction is also offering an optimization solution for the online ordering workflow. Their solution even breaks down an online order into more than 500 micro-tasks to complete. This cutting allows to optimize the logistic flows and to ensure that nothing is forgotten in the process to guarantee the best customer experience.
The experts’ vision around the concept of shopstreaming is very variable. Everyone agrees that it is a success in Asia but for its deployment in Europe and the United States the views differ.
For Gfk and IRI there is no doubt that this trend of e-commerce will rise in power because consumers are ready, and especially women under 30 according to Gfk. For Jason Goldberg of Publicis, this seems more complicated because the success of shopstreaming is only possible with the rise of digital wallets. As much as the majority of the Chinese population is equipped with either Alipay or Wepay, as much for the American population this is a whole other problem. The wallets market is certainly dominated by Amazon and Paypal, but with relatively low penetration rates compared to what is done in Asia. And for Jason Goldberg, it is the strong penetration of the wallets that facilitated the acts of purchase in the streamings by facilitating the checkout. However the notion of video appointments with sellers will continue according to him and mainly in luxury.
For Hana Ben-Shabat, founder of Planet GenZ, this young generation will change the world’s consumption. For her, this stems from the fact that this young generation favours investing and saving rather than consuming at all costs because they have seen their parents take the full brunt of the 2008 crisis. With the crisis, this trend has strengthened as more than 40% of GenZ are worried about their future.
During the tabletalks, it turned out that the world of food distribution was going to have to evolve very quickly. If at the beginning of the pandemic everyone had a passion for cooking, buying fresh produce, the reality of telework has subsequently taken over. Today, American consumers want practicality and therefore turn to ordering prepared dishes or ordering menus with batch cooking. A booming trend across the Atlantic that consists of cooking every meal of the week in one go from online recipes.
The website publishing the recipes is responsible for the delivery of the necessary products.Beyond the health aspect, consumers no longer want to waste time in stores. For Josh Gordon of Amazon Pay, the physical store will only be for fresh products the rest of the races will already be automatically ordered via the web channel. A store that must hybridize around central points like order withdrawal, product returns, drive and advice according to Brendan Withcher VP at Forrester. Brendan also assures that the Amazon Go concept can replace a brand like 7eleven within 5 years.
For Phil Lempert of Supermarketguru, it’s time distributors take responsibility for the quality of the food they sell. For him, the pandemic clearly demonstrated that good nutrition guarantees good immunity. We must stop industrial hypertransformation and even legislate in this direction.
In addition we were able to discuss with Algocart, this startup offers brands to personalize their online food offers according to the health of their customers. Customers will be able to inform about the pathologies and allergies they suffer from and the startup algorithm will not show any product against indicated. For Yuva Canfi, CEO of Algocart, we are clearly moving towards the fusion of health and consumer commerce. Eventually, distributors could even become the guarantors of our health thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence in customer journeys.
As for sustainable, responsible and committed business, the approach of the startup MeetLia is very interesting. MeetLia offers a fully biodegradable pregnancy test because it should be noted that in the United States 1000 tons of non-recyclable plastic waste are generated by these tests. MeetLia has simply changed the game by rethinking the design of the product to replace plastic with paper. In the end, the FDA-approved MeetLia test is biodegradable in less than 10 weeks. Beyond the product this approach to eco-responsible design is to follow, and inspiring. For Bethany Edwards, CEO Lia Diagnostics, it is the entire packaging of the retail sector that needs to be rethought in order to preserve the environment. And if a startup has been able to do this for a medical product, there is no reason that CPG (consumer brands) can also do it on their products.
Trade is booming and the pandemic has redistributed the cards to create the commerce of tomorrow. A connected and responsible trade.
