Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

Can’t resist temptations? Try ordering grocery online.

In the June issue of Good Housekeeping, researchers assigned 28 people to either a standard weight loss program or a program with online grocery delivery.

After 8 weeks the group who shopped online had fewer fattening foods in their cupboards. Grocery shopping online helps eliminated temptations and stock up on heather foods.

Who knew there was a health benefit to grocery shopping online?!

Rebecca

Have you ever tried to download a program or update only to find out that you’ll have to download another program to make whatever you just downloaded run? Or how about when you fill out a form but overlook a box and the whole thing gets reset? Infuriating isn’t it? Makes you question whether it’s really worth your time, right? I didn’t want that (insert product name here) anyway!

We’ve all had these experiences. So what can we do about it? As consumers we can leave the company feedback, as the creator we can conduct some usability testing!

What is usability you ask? To quote Wikipedia:

Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.

How easy is it to accomplish a task using a tool?

There is nothing worse than having a frustrated customer. Imagine your qualified leads, searching you out looking for your product only to walk away because the door to your store sticks and they can’t get in. That won’t happen you say. But it will. Once a consumer lands on your website you have 8 seconds to capture their interest and convert them. If there are any roadblocks in the way there’s a good chance you’ve lost them.

So I ask you, when was the last time you actually used your website? Or better yet, watched someone use your website? Do you know how many clicks it takes to send your company an email? Where is the contact button on your website? How long does it take for the homepage to load and do you make the customer sit through a flash video after that or can they skip it? How usable is your website?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed. Take a deep breath. Start small and fix the little things first. But please before you do anything, ask someone who doesn’t work for your comapny (your mom, your partner, your sister…anyone) to complete a simple task on your website and let you watch them. Take notes, see where they click and let them struggle. It may be painful to watch but it’s more painful to lose all those wonderful visitors that sought you out just because your navigation doesn’t make sense.

You’re not alone - EVERYONE has usability issues. Even Bill Gates can’t figure out how to download a program from the Microsoft website. Really, it’s true, read this - you’ll feel better.

For more information on how to improve usability start here:
Jakob Nielsen’s Usability 101
Usability Professional’s Association
A List Apart

: Elise

That was a comment from everyone of about 60 or 70 people in a room just last week. I was giving a short presentation on Google Analytics and how MyWebGrocer uses analytics to not only generate revenue, but to make that revenue worth even more. I should say thanks to EpikOne here in Burlington, VT for hosting Web Analytics Wednesdays and giving us (and more specifically, me) the opportunity to talk with everyone.

So I finished the main body of my presentation and opened the floor to questions. And to the audience’s credit, we did get quite a few good questions on analytics and how we were using them here at MyWebGrocer. But there quickly started to be some interspersed questions on MyWebGrocer and what we did.

I had given a very brief overview at the opening, but I figured it hadn’t been enough. I gave another 2 or 3 minute mini-talk on MyWebGrocer — and it was like opening the floodgates. “How does it work?” “Do you really get good products?” “How much does it cost?” But then, the granddaddy of them all. Someone in the back of the room — he was standing — raised his hand and asked where he could use the system in Vermont. Unfortunately, I had to tell him, you can’t — unless you use NetGrocer . “Why not?” he asked, “It sounds like a great idea!” A murmur of absolutely, I’d use it, yes went through the crowds. Everyone was nodding their head in agreement. “Well,” I said, “the retail grocery industry in Vermont isn’t that competitive, so the driving forces we see in places like New York, North Carolina, California, those forces just don’t exist here. It’s been something we’ve presented to the parent companies of all three major chains represented here. All of them are nominally interested, but I think it’s going to take one of them to go for the others to think it’s a great idea.”

And this got me thinking…Online grocery shopping is a great idea, no doubt about it. But often, selling it to executives can be tough. But stand in front of 50 people with kids and jobs and homes and soccer and dance and all the other things that fill a family’s life these days and tell them about online grocery shopping. Tell them you can order your groceries, drive up to the front of the store, have someone load them into your trunk and off you go. Then stand back and listen to them clamor for it!

Honestly, I haven’t told anyone in my circle of friends, acquaintances, people on planes who ask me what I do who has thought this is a bad idea. Even my mother has said that she’d use the service (of course, Dad would have to order the groceries…Mom steadfastly refuses to use a computer…) if it was offered near her.

So, ultimately, what I’m saying is this: if you work at a store and you think you should offer this service, certainly call us. We’ll help you out. But also, call your customers. Ask them what they think. I promise you, almost everyone will tell you that if you offer it, they’ll use it. And if you’re a chain operating in Vermont, there are 40+ people at MyWebGrocer who would be morally obligated to use the service…and another 60+ converts from Vermont I spoke to last week!

Scot

So far, online advertising doesn’t seem to have been hit by the economic troubles growing out of the credit crunch and the “recession”, and forecasters are looking at 25%-plus growth this year. I happen to agree with these forecasters and think that the state of online advertising is strong and will grow despite the sluggish economy.

Why?
More and more advertisers are looking for a better return on their investments; many are considering online platforms/networks like MyWebGrocer to get it. The reason online ads are proving so successful include the fact that online ads have a positive ROI, they have a measurable return and for companies like MyWebGrocer, have high conversion rates related to their integrated online shopping platform.

Advertisers are spending a larger slice of their budget online. The current economic crisis is putting pressure on advertisers to save money and find more effective marketing channels. The technologies that enable online advertising provide a much more efficient means than traditional media for doing what advertisers ultimately want: selling to consumers. Today, online ad revenue is but a fraction of what it is offline but as more content becomes digital, coupled by the flight of ads from traditional outlets to cyberspace and as more and more people spend more time online there’s definitely room to grow.

Niche sites and networks and websites that show great value and behavioral and contextual targeting are going to enjoy greater investment and ROI and will be the key elements of success.
It was possible to “blow your ad spend” on a single broadcast TV ad. Now advertisers would much rather get more specific and target specific customers and have maybe less eyeballs but higher quality eyeballs, or less leads and higher quality leads.

Sure the growth may decelerate and granted online advertising would be growing faster in a more robust economy, but I don’t see why it should not continue to have a positive and healthy growth rate.

Charles Rutanhira

What’s in it for the receiver if you’re only sending them things that you want from them? Make it relevant.

Here are 4 easy tips you can do today.

1. Insert two to three relevant messages into your promotion calendar. Include a few tips to help readers save on their grocery bill, how to clean the bar-b-q, or be more productive at work (order groceries on line). When readers find value in your messages, they are more likely to open the next message, and so on.

2. Personalize. Using your customers names yield a 47% higher open rate.

3. Segment your list.You can do this by new subscribers, what customers purchased in the past month (by product or manufacture) or who hasn’t opened or clicked in the past three months. When you send a relevant follow-up message it can boost the response rate by up to 600%.

4. Use the data you have. Would knowing birthdays let you celebrate with your customers and forge a deeper bond? How about shopping history so you can let them know what they buy is on sale.

When you create more relevance for subscribers they will reward you with higher response and attention. As soon as you can start to show some results from these small tests you will be in a much better position to make the case to expand. Then you’ll be able to really start driving customer acquisition and retention via a cost effective sales and marketing tool.

-Rebecca