In the constantly disrupting and erupting digital ecosystem, the e-commerce landscape remains the most pervasive aspect of retail businesses. Needless to say, it is indispensable to thrive in the modern world of business, without e-commerce and FMCG brands, particularly, find it quite challenging.
The E-commerce challenge of FMCG brands
Most often than not, FMGC brands across online supermarkets tend to lack integration of the customer’s decision-making processes and the brand marketing that influences sales. This has led to major FMCG players with a single-digit sales percentage range. To add it to, traditional FMCG brands are still trying to grasp the fact that the millennial shopper journey map has changed radically, with the first touch-point being a digital one. Unlike traditionally, marketing and sales are no more separate functions of the brand but merged as a holistic technique to connect with your audience and create customer influence.
FMCG needs a different digital marketing strategy
So far, we have been used to ‘high-involvement brands’ (books, gadgets, bags, shoes, clothes, holidays) ruling the e-commerce landscape. With such products it becomes easier to map the customer journey across online supermarkets, by mapping time, effort and interest. With FMCG the online behavior is rather different. Since the choice of the retailer drives the e-commerce purchase decision and is mostly instant, it is important for FMCG brands to adopt a different digital marketing strategy. Rather than following the established path of online retail marketing and reinventing the customer journey, it is more rational to align your brand behavior with your shopper.
It is important to remember that FMCG purchases often happen as a ‘part of a purchase’. You would rarely find someone buying ‘washing detergent’ standalone. Shoppers visit online supermarkets to save time, energy and money and get household needs in bulk. The idea is to optimize that investment by reducing time, effort and money for the shopper.
To win the battles of brands in the E-commerce war, every FMCG brand need to look at e-commerce platforms as not only a channel but a primary destination, where your shopper starts the brand journey. A more effective strategy would be to integrate e-commerce and its tools to design the entire brand communication and use it to jumpstart your customer’s journey. And, finally lead them to the point of purchase, thus taking them through a memorable customer experience.