Future of commerce: groceries summary

The Future of Commerce tracks changes in consumer behaviour year on year. This report compares research collected in February 2022 with 2021 findings across six major markets: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Spain, and China. 

We spoke to 1200 consumers across generations to understand their purchasing behaviour and why, where, and how they shop across the grocery category.

The Disrupted Basics. Adaptive Commerce

Inflation Marketing

• 16% of all grocery shoppers traded down due to inflation, and 36% delayed a grocery purchase due to high prices
• The US was particularly acute, with 33% of grocery shoppers trading down and 27% deferring a purchase

Supply Chain

• 35% of shoppers were able to buy even though they saw the product was in short supply, 21% switched and 44% delayed purchase
• The US, Australia and the US were the most likely markets to see switching behavior
• The US was led by the “horseshoe behaviors” of Gen Z and Boomers – 46% of US consumers facing a grocery out of stock/shipping delay switched products – 52% of Boomers and 40% of Gen Z way over-indexing. No cause established but there were a few areas in this survey (attitudes around re-urbanization was another) where Gen Z behaved more like Boomers than Millennials.
• Chinese shoppers were the most loyal – 24% switched and over 40% of shoppers decided to delay purchase to wait for the product they wanted..

Contextual Commerce & the Rise of Online Outlet Choice

Outlet Choice

• 16% of all grocery shoppers traded down due to inflation, and 36% delayed a grocery purchase due to high prices
• The US was particularly acute, with 33% of grocery shoppers trading down and 27% deferring a purchase

Why online?

The reasons why people shop online for grocery are remarkably similar to the reasons they shop online for anything – not because people want more excitement from grocery shopping than you might anticipate but because people want less excitement from online shopping in general than perception suggests.

The Wow/Right/Now 25/50/25 split for motivations is fairly consistent across markets, and almost astonishingly consistent across age groups – there is no statistically significant difference between what Gen Z grocery shoppers and Boomer shoppers want from a grocery trip in terms of the ratio between Wow, Right and Now. Within this there are some useful differences at a component variable level:

• Boomers are extremely interested in price comparison – they are more interested in using online shopping for this than any demographic is interested in any other reason
• Gen Z is more interested in the right product than the right price – one of their major reasons for shopping grocery online is it is the only place they can get certain brands

For wow, in grocery, boomers over-indexed on it feeling safe (almost certainly a COVID-related emotion) and, interestingly did significantly more browsing than Gen Z for groceries online (Gen Z is the outlier here, under-indexing all other demographics for this). It is possible that “browsing” for Gen Z is done as part of the “Broader browse” that is content consumption for them through TikTok and Instagram, and that they view shopping as a place to complete the browsing done in their “upper funnel” world.In-store shopping

The differences in in-store shopping preference for grocery are incredibly consistent at a major group level – Wow and Right are 40% of the primary motivation each, and now is 20%. This does not vary much by geography or age bracket for grocery shopping. There are some interesting distinctions at a variable level by age bracket – the demographic that prefers shopping because you can touch and feel the product? That’s Gen Z, not boomers. The generation that likes buying things in-store for better prices? That’s boomers, not the famously frugal Gen Z’ers, skewing higher on that accountClick here for the full report of Future of commerce: navigating a world of disrupted basics.