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blog
IGD’s latest grocery market forecast highlights the boom in convenience. The recent spate of activity, such as Morrisons and McColl’s, Tesco and Booker, and B&M and Heron Foods, are all examples of businesses looking to get scale benefits into smaller stores. Since big operators like Tesco started to successfully translate the value and capabilities of running big stores back into small stores with the likes of Express, the modern c-store has all the benefits of accessibility and is a much better competitor to larger stores in range and pricing compared to the 1970s equivalent. Find the full version of Tim’s article here to read his views about the data hole caused by convenience stores. Convenience stores are challenged by their small store model and different audiences. Find out how this could be overcome through new data collection techniques and smartphone-enablement to avoid wasting this important channel.
If I were to highlight one strategic trend from the headlines this year, it is that retailers are finally starting to shift their digital transformation efforts up a gear. In August, Ofcom underlined why retail must redouble its efforts in following the customer online when it revealed near ubiquitous levels of UK smartphone penetration. One-to-one marketing is now a potential reality, not a dream.
The results are in for Black Friday and it’s not good - even with potentially large price discounts, consumers still didn’t respond well, with like-for-like sales down 0.5% last month and footfall dropping 5.5% post Black Friday – almost double the decline of the previous year. Lessons from 2017 also proved that cutting prices simply cut margins and profitability, without increasing customer demand.
To achieve lasting, in-depth customer loyalty, retailers must develop keen insights into their customers, understand their behaviors and preferences, and deliver valuable, relevant offers and communications to customers based on those insights. To do that, they need connected customer data.