Groceryshop brings together national and regional grocery retailers, convenience stores, drug stores, club/warehouse stores, discount stores, and ecommerce players as well as CPG brands in food and beverage, beauty, personal care, household, health, and other verticals. This event addresses shared challenges and opportunities relating to the evolution of how consumers shop for products.

The Leading Event for Grocery & CPG Innovators

For an event that is only in its second year, Groceryshop has set incredible records with 200+ CEOs and 3,000 attendees from 30+ countries.

More than 300 companies exhibited and sponsored Groceryshop 2019, in Las Vegas, to reach this audience and their Hosted Retailers & Brands Program curated approximately 5,000 onsite meetings.

1WorldSync was excited to attend Groceryshop this year and couldn’t wait to discuss industry trends as well as the importance of product content, rich digital images, and full product attribution. 

Sessions provided critical insights into the challenges and opportunities around shopper habits, how stores will operate, and why grocers and brands must address a rapidly-changing industry – or get left behind. 

The conversation at the Venetian revolved around ensuring data-driven shopping experiences for consumers, leveraging disruptive technologies of artificial intelligence (AI), preparing for grocery ecommerce and more.

Here are a few insights from my favorite sessions: 

Next Generation Mobile Shopping

The mobile world can minimize the experience but elevate the transaction. Mobile has become a fundamental part of grocery retailers’ digital strategies, touching every aspect of the customer journey from discovery to transaction. 

Leaders in this space have developed apps that help shoppers find items in the store, learn more about products, access their loyalty rewards or scan a barcode as they add products to their carts—more advanced companies are using the data collected from these offerings to send customers targeted mobile messages that encourage them to make incremental purchases. 

Zak Normadin, Founder & CEO, Iris Nova discussed conversational commerce and stated “Our world is food on your phone. As a brand, the URL is for pictures and information and we use our phones to ask questions and conduct transactions.”  

Leveraging Product Content 

Brands have long struggled to maintain a consistent image across all their different retail partners and to ensure every partner has reliable, up-to-date product information. At the same time, consumers are demanding more information on the products they’re buying—from specifics on product sources to details on ingredients. The most forward-looking brands are using product information as a strategic differentiator, embracing new digital options to provide shoppers with detailed information and authentic feedback from other consumers. 

This session featured industry leaders from Walmart, Danone North America and Drizly who discussed how they ensure that shoppers have access to compelling, accurate product information.  

Ram Rampalli, Head of Catalog Strategy, Walmart stated “Product content needs to be specific with images, copy and right attributes to be searchable. Solution providers like 1WorldSync are important to partner with to achieve content syndication.” We couldn’t agree more! 

Measuring Marketing Effectiveness

In this interactive session, brands and retailers like Martin’s Supermarkets, Spotify and Remy Cointreau shared their experiences using tools including cross-channel attribution, store visits driven by marketing messages, social media for brand favorability and other innovative approaches to measuring marketing ROI.

It was great to hear them share their success in fragmented grocery retail and touching consumers across all touchpoints.  

One quote that really resonated with me was “Because no customer journey is the same, improving human connections is essential to success.” 

Key Takeaways: What Happens In Vegas Shouldn’t Stay In Vegas

All in all, Groceryshop was an insightful experience. To summarize, some of my key takeaways:

• Over the next few years, new omni-channel offerings will emerge which will include new ways to order as well as more convenient delivery and pickup options. The result will be an increase in orders via digital platforms as well as significant changes in physical stores as they become a key part of order fulfillment. 
• Companies are getting smarter about how both online and offline shoppers interact with their products and their stores, and today many brands and retailers use customer data in sophisticated ways to develop and personalize new offerings. 
• Speaking of data driven shopping experiences, there will continue to be a double edged data sword – it must be excellent or will be detrimental. Marketing will grow its focus on lifetime customer value and there will be an increased focus on social media and predictive analytics.
• New technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain will start to transform the supply chain.
• Consumers, too, are driving change across the sector, demanding products that are healthier for their bodies and the environment, and that support their unique lifestyles. 
• The main message we took away was a seamless multi-channel shopping experience is no longer a luxury, but a necessity to succeed and be competitive in today’s market – or as you might say in Vegas, table stakes.

1WorldSync looks forward to attending in 2020!