For Grocery Stores - In Store Shopping Still Reigns Supreme

Although online grocery shopping is increasing, the huge boost from the pandemic is fading. In store experiences are hard to replicate online, particularly grocery stores. People want to see and select their own food and comparison shop in store for new and cost effective items. 

According to Advantage Solutions nearly 70% of respondents typically shop primarily at brick-and-mortar stores, about 20% equally at stores and online for pickup or delivery, and just over 10% primarily online. 

Meaning, 90% of your customers will step into your store.

Why are so many shoppers continuing to come into the store? Cost is a key driver. Delivery services are expensive. Instacart includes a delivery fee starting at $3.99, Whole Foods' delivery service through Amazon costs a flat rate of $9.95 per order, not including tips or online markups. And when products are not available, shoppers are unable to make alternate selections on the fly. However, digital ordering is convenient, and delivers more personalized service based on your buying history and preferences. 

How then to bridge online grocery personalization with the in store experience? Grocery grocers need strategies to support shoppers who are both online and offline consumers by integrating these convenient digital tools and channels into the brick-and-mortar experience. One strategy to bridge the online and offline experience is leveraging Guest Wi-Fi in store with a custom captive portal, identifying and interacting with guest users upon their connection to a Wi-Fi signal.

Grocers who properly utilize Guest Wi-Fi can deliver a seamless one-to-one connection to shoppers to enhance the customer experience, providing personalization based on prior interactions, purchases, and social profiles. SocialSign.in solutions provides the best way to identify, engage, and nurture your onsite shoppers, allowing grocers to easily collect validated first-party data from customers signing into guest Wi-Fi, and integrate this data into existing marketing technology stack. Here are three simple ways Guest Wi-Fi marketing can bridge between online and offline grocery shopping. 

 

1. Mobile App Acquisition And Adoption

Shoppers now expect mobile apps to merge online orders, digital coupons, loyalty rewards, product recommendations informed by prior purchases across all channels and BOPIS options all in one place. 

However, mobile app adoption and usage are challenging for any organization and our data shows that most mobile app users need to be prompted to use the app while onsite. Using the Guest Wi-FI captive portal experience, shoppers who already have the mobile app downloaded can access it quickly. Guest Wi-Fi can also reach shoppers who use Wi-Fi but not apps and aren’t currently loyalty members, creating new first party data connections. Guest Wi-Fi experience can also prompt shoppers to download the app without having to search the app store for it. 

 

2. Increase Basket Size 

Connecting to Wi-Fi generally occurs at the beginning of a store visit. By targeting shoppers digitally at that moment while they are in the store provides a great opportunity to increase basket sizes and impulse purchases. 

Grocers can identify the digital customer profiles already in their database and link those profiles to the in store shopper BEFORE checkout. Precisely target the shoppers most likely to take advantage of particular offers, seasonal merchandise and promotions based on the shoppers prior actions and go beyond one-size-fits-all strategies. 

 

3. Interactive Digital Advertising 

At the local or national store level, Guest Wi-Fi is another way to display digital advertising from your premium brands and advertisers, creating another screen with easy touch access to augment digital displays in your store. Multiple experiences for the different zones of a grocery store allow for segmenting the messaging and content according to what relates to that department, like highlighting specific brands or “store within a store” concepts, capturing shoppers' attention where and when you want it. The combination of digital display ads and Wi-Fi marketing will enable grocers to offer interactive in-store campaigns which include display impressions, call-to-action units on personal devices, reinforcement touches when connecting to Wi-Fi, and profile captures.

 

Online grocery shopping is here to stay, but providing shoppers a seamless experience in store is key to customer retention and satisfaction. Grocery shoppers want more than a digital experience, they want a personalized relationship with brands they trust. Using Guest Wi-Fi as the trusted bridge between the digital and in store experience that will help that relationship grow and grocers can realize significant ROI if done properly.

Solutions & Options

To learn more, see SocialSign.in’s Guest Wi-Fi demo in action click here: View Demo 

Visit our industry playbooks to see all the initiatives that Guest Wi-Fi can offer.

Infrastructure Details

Cisco
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Aerohive
Juniper Mist
Ubiquiti
Ruckus