How to find new online shoppers

Fraser McKevitt, our head of consumer and retail insight, spoke at The Grocer Conference 2018: How to Win in Online Grocery, today in London.

Sharing the stage with Adam Leyland, Editor, The Grocer, and speakers from Google, Ocado, Facebook and Sainsbury’s, Fraser's presentation focussed on online shoppers in the UK and how retailers could attract more of them:

In 2017 the online share of UK FMCG spend was was 7.2% of sales, among the highest in the world - on a par with Japan, but behind South Korea.

The online shopper is, at you might expect, biased towards affluent families, but by no means exclusively so, as more than two thirds of online spend is from shoppers from the other socio-economic groups.

Retailers are fighting for existing store loyalty, which strongly influences shoppers' choice of online retailer. That said, pure-play etailers are making inroads, including Amazon which is growing quickly off a very small base.

Despite the rapid online growth of recent years, growth has now slowed to less than 5%. To ramp that up again and attract new shoppers the online model needs to change to remove barriers for shoppers, whether that's the price of delivery, the shopping experience or the available delivery slots.