Just weeks after Amazon laid out its plans to enter the online grocery market proper, Sainsbury’s jumped in with its own play for the time-poor consumer. The top-three grocery retailer announced its own plans to pilot and roll-out same-day delivery from 30 of its largest stores by Christmas. In a direct challenge to Amazon, Sainsbury’s said it would kick-off the initiative out of its new ‘dark store’ at Bromley-by-Bow in east London, where it will eventually employ up to 900 staff.
Download our UK Online Grocery Analysis and see which brands are out-performing their competitors.
UK Online Grocery Sales Up 23% in Holiday Towns
The rise of grocery ecommerce is not limited to well-healed or up-and-coming London boroughs, however. Sainsbury’s says it also saw a massive rise in demand for grocery delivery in traditional holiday towns around the county where it says sales grew 23% on average over the summer. Its Truro store saw the biggest rise, with online orders increasing by 53%, as British holidaymakers opted for online over traditional grocery shopping.
Other UK supermarkets are also jumping on the bandwagon. At the end of August Tesco entered the fray announcing plans to provide same-day click and collect services for grocery orders in up to 300 stores across the country. Around the same time, we also saw a new take on the by now bi-annual rumours about an Ocado takeover. This time Asda and its parent Walmart were suggested as the potential buyer.
The continuing growth of the digital channel means that success for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturers is even more dependent on how their products are represented in the UK’s online retailers. It no longer makes sense for brands to only focus their efforts on the brick and mortar channel.
Know your Online Grocery Retail Partners
Hence knowing how UK retailers operate online, and what functionality they offer is key when it comes to empowering brands to keep up with the competition and continue to squeeze any sales growth out of a tight market. Clavis Insight recently published an analysis of UK online store functionality. The analysis describes the differences between the major retailers’ in terms of membership, delivery options, and mobile capabilities, as well as how products are represented in different online stores.
Monitoring how you perform against elements of representation such as landing page content, online product availability, ratings and reviews, search rank, and category placement for your products and assortments offers brands a framework for improving ecommerce channel business and working more closely with online retailers.
As the big retailers jostle with each other and prepare to face the potential challenge presented by AmazonFresh, brands that know how the ecommerce land lies will be well placed to take advantage of the growth opportunities at hand.
Download our UK Online Grocery Analysis and see which brands are out-performing their competitors
