Brands are planning to invest more heavily into their ecommerce strategies across the key UK grocery retailers this festive season, despite lingering concerns over digital investment strategies, according to new research.
Threepipe Reply, a brand performance agency, can reveal that 87% of brands confirmed that due to COVID-19 and the rise of online food shopping, their budget investment would be rising into the festive period.
However, this budget investment is at risk of being wasted, with 21% of brands admitting that they were unsure they had the right digital investment strategy in place.
The Threepipe Reply survey of 200 people working within FMCG brands with responsibility for Ecommerce across the grocery retailers reveals a real lack of understanding of how Grocery Ecommerce sites actually work:
• 20% of brands did not know each grocery retailer has its own unique search algorithm that matches products to consumer search enquiries
• 18% of brands are not creating content assets for the specific needs of each of the grocery Ecommerce sites
• 18% of brands are not monitoring competitor pricing and promotions and adjusting their own strategies in response
With 47% of brands claiming to have enjoyed online sales volume rises of between 16% and 30% during Covid-19, this lack of algorithm understanding and focused approach will lead to missed sales opportunities at the most crucial time of the year.
Threepipe Reply works with brands to develop bespoke solutions across each of the key grocery retailer Ecommerce sites. Working recently with a well-known food manufacturer, Threepipe Reply was able to lift incremental sales across a number of SKUs on Tesco.com by 25% in just a three month period.
Farhad Koodoruth, Co-Founder, Threepipe Reply: “There is a huge opportunity for brands to better maximise their sales in the build up to Christmas and beyond. Each of the retailers has a very different search algorithm which recommends products to consumers. Brands are missing out on incremental sales from new customers by not optimising their organic and paid media strategies around these different requirements.”