The typical grocery shopping routine involves checking out the grocery circulars, making your shopping list, grabbing your coupons, going to the grocery store, and filling a shopping cart with everything you’ll need for the week.
But that routine has become a lot less typical lately. A new report finds that more shoppers are doing more of their shopping in more places, and more often.
Placer.ai, which measures retail foot traffic, has noticed a shift in its latest report about grocery visits. “Over the past two years, short grocery trips (under 10 minutes) have grown far more quickly than longer visits,” it notes. “Their steady expansion suggests this behavioral shift is here to stay and that its full impact on the industry has yet to be realized.”
So far this year, 24.5% of all grocery visits have lasted 10 minutes or less, suggesting that the weekly visit to a traditional grocer or superstore isn’t meeting all of shoppers’ needs. And that’s not necessarily because of what the traditional weekly grocery destination doesn’t offer, but because of what other retailers do.
“Different models align with distinct consumer needs,” Placer.ai found. “Shoppers are splitting their grocery habits across formats, favoring specialty purchases at fresh formats, bigger stock-ups at traditional grocers, and top-up trips at value grocers.”
Fresh-format grocers like Sprouts, and value grocers like ALDI, represent the high and low end of the grocery “fill-in” trip, when you just need a few extra items to get you through the week. Among all grocery types, fresh formats are the fastest-growing, according to Placer.ai’s findings, overtaking the recent rise of value grocers, which continue to expand but may have peaked.
Fresh formats “are rarely used for a primary weekly shop,” Placer.ai notes. Instead, they appeal to more affluent customers seeking out “unique items, high-quality produce, or a prepared meal – who also value the ability to get in and out quickly.” On the other end, “price-sensitive shoppers continue to seek out affordable options” at value grocers. They may not be everyone’s primary grocer, but they’re attracting more shoppers who are looking “to stretch budgets and stock up on essentials.”
But don’t count out the big traditional grocers. They may be losing some higher-income and lower-income shoppers to the competition. But they’re still the primary choice for the weekly stock-up trip – some more than others.
Placer.ai found that H-E-B has the highest share of loyal visitors, defined as the percentage of shoppers who visit at least every week. In H-E-B’s case, that’s 38.5%, compared to Kroger’s 27.6% and Meijer at 24.8%. They each “command a reliable customer base coming for full grocery runs and taking time to fill their carts,” Placer.ai found, demonstrating that “even in a polarizing environment, there is ample room for traditional formats to thrive by deeply understanding and catering to a specific target audience.”
So it’s not necessarily that traditional grocery stores are doing anything wrong. There are just a lot of choices lately. And, to real value seekers, not all of them are created equal. Higher-end stores like Sprouts tend to look down on coupons, while value stores like ALDI pride themselves on not accepting them. So if you’re a committed coupon user, your choice may be clear.
For everyone else who’s increasingly spreading their shopping around, “widening economic divides are reshaping competitive dynamics in grocery retail,” Placer.ai concluded. And as more stores offer selection and savings that the big grocery chains can’t match, the traditional weekly one-stop shopping trip may fade even further into the past.
Image source: ALDI
