Since the pandemic, there have been a lot of new things in the grocery scene, mostly gearing towards healthy food and ready-to-eat meals. One of our volunteers, Greg Richards, a patent attorney, changed the way he does his groceries. He’s stocking up more and he selects more healthy options. Let’s find out more of this trends and what consumers are doing now.
- Online grocery shopping and delivery services have boomed. Because people were not able to go out as much because of the pandemic, grocery stores had to adjust and find an easier way for consumers. It saves a lot of time and effort and there are a lot of different payment methods for it. And the other great thing about this is that you are able to get a lot of freebies, discounts and coupons or vouchers. Even if we are already in the new normal, this online and delivery services will still continue to evolve to keep up with the fast pace of consumer’s every day life.
- In connection to online grocery shopping and delivery services, there is a lot of automation now in the grocery setting. There are self-check outs counter already which is amazing because you can do it all by yourself and no need to interact with people. If you want a quiet time in the grocery, you can find this self-check out counters. The only challenge here is that if they would add more of this is the lost of opportunity for people needing jobs. Business owners should find away to balance this.
- Wide and improved selection of ready-to-eat meals – you can find better selections now in the grocery. During the peak of the pandemic, the only place you can buy decent food was the grocery so people opt in on ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat food more. Restaurants were closed, there’s no 24/7 food delivery services. To satisfy the customers, grocery stores and brands had to improve and add more offerings. There were a lot of partnerships and co-branding made. Restaurants were offering their food in the grocery. People were happy!
- There are more premium products now in the grocery which is very exciting for customers. There are more selections in alcohol, specialy coffe, frozen meals, meal kits and spices. Since staying mostly at home made a lot of consumers a cook, there are also more ingrendients for cooking now. Despite budget constraints, consumers prefer more premium products that are value for money and offers great satisfaction.
These are just some of the trends that we are obviously seeing now. When you think about it, this is one of the great things that the pandemic cause – born of the more convenient way of doing your groceries, wider assortment, premium products, easy to prepare meals, all of which give a great satisfaction to customers. Now observe these trends when you do your groceries one of these days, share to us what you think, share to us what you think can be improved and what you are looking forward to in the coming years.
