Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

There’s nothing like having a cold or the flu to zap your energy and leave you feeling, frankly, miserable.  But for the makers of cold and flu products, sniffles, sore throats, sneezes, and body aches are big business.

According to the Center for Disease Control, Americans typically exhibit more signs of colds, or worse, the flu, between November and March.  Experts believe that more cases occur during cold months because people spend more time indoors where viruses can spread easily. Low humidity and dryness of the nasal passage are also thought to be conditions under which many viruses thrive.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Americans are buying a lot more cold medicine in the winter.  We were curious to know just how dramatic the difference between summer and winter sales of these products would be.

Sales of products designed to treat cold and flu symptoms increased a whopping 369.74% overall in January of 2010, versus August 2009.  Category sales, overall, were up nearly 70%.

Implicatons: As a culture we have come to expect a “quick fix” for what ails us.  Today’s consumers are willing to self-medicate and are comfortable making purchases they feel will improve their health without seeking the guidance of a doctor.  Today, new self-care products are seen as a necessity, even though many did not even exist a decade ago. Less than eight years ago, for example, hand sanitizer products were used primarily by physicians. Today, the product is ubiquitous in schools, offices, shopping centers, and many people even carry the product wherever they go.

Marketers who provide products that allow consumers to feel they are proactively caring for their health are poised to benefit from this trend. Exposing consumers to health-focused messaging at the point of sale is one tactic that is especially effective for capturing the attention of consumers from November to March.

Methodology: MyWebGrocer provides digital solutions for 95 of the nation’s leading retail grocery chains. We create tools and deliver services that help grocers strengthen their relationships with customers and increase their basket size, including mobile solutions, digital circulars, e-commerce, recipes, shopping lists, and search engine marketing.  MyWebGrocer captures aggregate sales data for the online grocery transactions it powers.  The data above was drawn from online grocery transactions occurring between Aug. 1 – Aug. 31, 2009 and Jan. 1 – Jan. 31 2010.

Photo courtesy of middleagedsuburbandiva.com

MyWebGrocer Media connected with more than 2.7 million unique users in September, making it the single largest online grocery destination, according to comScore’s data. The rapidly growing ad network has more than doubled in size in the past year.*

The Largest Online Grocery Audience

The Nielsen Company recently reported** that, in July of 2009, more than 13 million U.S. Internet users visited a grocery site. With 2.7 unique monthly users, MyWebGrocer Media represents the web’s largest online grocery audience, roughly 21% of the online grocery population.  MyWebGrocer Media is a top destination among online food enthusiasts, with more unique monthly visitors than both Yahoo! Food and Epicurious.com, as measured by comScore.

Active and Engaged Users

Not only is MyWebGrocer Media’s audience big, its users are highly engaged. The average MyWebGrocer shopper spends 11.9 minutes on the network and views 28 pages of content (October 2009).

“Consumers in our network are highly engaged and purchase-motivated,” said Alec Newcomb, EVP, MyWebGrocer.  “By the time they arrive at one of our 90 grocery retail sites, they are cementing their grocery purchase decisions. They are creating shopping lists that will be printed out and taken with them to the grocery store, or increasingly, completing their purchase online and picking them up,” Newcomb adds.

Driving Results for CPG Brands

Over 60 CPG Advertisers agree that MyWebGrocer Media is a highly effective way to reach consumers including leading brands: “Kellogg’s online advertising with MyWebGrocer has shown double digit product sales growth. The ability to track and report sales enables us to test and forecast what works in online grocery.”                 -Kamela Warren, E-Business Manager, Kellogg’s

*MWG media had 1,173,00 unique visitors in Sept. 08 according to comScore Media Builder, and 2,736,000 in Sept. 09 according to comScore Media Metrix – an increase of 133%.

**The Nielsen Company. “Online Grocery Shopping: Ripe Timing for Resurgence.” September 2009

I remember my mother sitting on the living room floor on Sundays, spread out with the weekly circular in front of her, planning our family’s shopping list for the week.

“Woo hoo! Another deal! Special K–two for one this week!” she’d announce gloriously, while clipping out the coupon and adding it to the collection she carried around in a tattered envelope in her purse. “Woo hoo! Fifty cents off Quilted Northern!”

Flash forward 25 years, and here I am doing the very same thing…on my iPhone.

Yesterday, MyWebGrocer and ShopRite launched the very first weekly specials iPhone App. We’re all very excited about it here at MWG because it’s a product we all believe in and use personally.

Click on image below view a video demo of the App

The App is the latest incarnation of MyWebGrocer’s efforts to make ShopRite’s customers’ lives easier. It functions as a portable circular and invites consumers to “start saving” before they even arrive at the store by browsing hundreds of items instantly. Among its many groundbreaking features, ShopRite Weekly Specials enables consumers to see what’s on sale in real time at their regular ShopRite store. Once they select an item, it literally tumbles into their shopping list, which is neatly organized by category with pictures, descriptions and real time prices. The App syncs and downloads store specials directly to an iPhone or iPod Touch and can even sync with customers’ shopping lists at ShopRite.com.

At the gym this morning, while plugging along on an excercise bike, I put together a dinner menu for tomorrow night based on the current sale items at ShopRite . I planned the meal around what’s on sale, and I was able to stay within budget my because the App gave me a running total of my basket price. When I got to the office, I printed out a paper copy of my list, and I will stop at the store tonight and pick up my groceries after work. I saved myself time and money, all while burning calories on the bike! I felt so good I added a box of chololate cookies to my shopping list…hey! I’d earned it!

Our App doesn’t try to be “all things to all people…” and I like that. This App focuses on what I want to know: what’s on sale at my local store. It’s simple and efficient and it gets the job done.

Twenty-five years later, I am “clipping coupons” just like mom. As I click around on my iPhone, I can understand the excitement she felt there on the living room floor clipping for “deals.” And I’m doing it from the gym…bonus.

So I might as well just say it: I am turning into my mother. Woo-hoo!

-Alison

Colchester VT, September 22nd, 2009:  The continuing shift of media spending from offline to online advertising has led MyWebGrocer to expand its presence in the key New York City market. To meet this demand, MyWebGrocer is opening its first dedicated Manhattan office and has hired Dan Vanchieri as Vice President of Sales for the Eastern Region.

Dan joins MyWebGrocer with more than 10 years of digital media and sales experience. Most recently, Dan spent two years at Fox Interactive Media, where he led strategic development and revenue generation within MySpace for partners like Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills, AT&T, Pfizer, Heineken and Yum Brands. Prior to Fox, Dan served at Microsoft, executing online sales and strategy for numerous e-commerce and Fortune 500 companies.

“Dan is a consummate pro in the digital space,” said Alec Newcomb, Executive Vice President of MyWebGrocer. “With our continuing expansion and the shifts in the marketplace, Dan’s strategic insights and experience in generating real growth for partners will be key. We’re all excited to have him lead the new Manhattan office.”

MyWebGrocer’s new offices in New York City are located at 260 Madison Avenue. It operates the nation’s largest grocery media platform. In August of 2009, the company received a $13 million equity investment from Stripes Group, a private investment firm focused on rapidly growing and profitable Internet and software-as-a-service companies.

About MyWebGrocer, Inc.

MyWebGrocer, founded in 1999 and based in Colchester, VT, is the leading digital service provider for retail grocers, connecting retail brands to their customers through ecommerce and online tools. MyWebGrocer has the largest online grocery-advertising media platform in the country with more than 5,000 grocery stores nationwide using their services. Advertisers include Kellogg’s, Unilever, Nestle, P&G and 60 other leading brands.

On Wednesday, August 5, 2009, Stripes Group completed a $13 million equity investment in MyWebGrocer Inc., a rapidly growing and profitable Colchester, VT‐based software‐as‐a‐service company providing leading regional and national grocery store chains and consumer packaged goods companies with online commerce and digital media services. As part of their unique platform, MyWebGrocer operates the nation’s largest grocery ad network with over 4 million monthly shoppers.

DanMarriott, Managing Partner of Stripes Group, will be joining the MyWebGrocer Board of Directors.

About Stripes Group:

Stripes Group, founded in 2003 and based in New York, is a private investment firm focused on growth stage minority and majority investments in rapidly growing and profitable internet, software‐as‐a‐service, technology‐enabled services and consumer products companies. Stripes Group typically partners with founder‐owned and operated companies that have had no prior institutional investors.  For more information on Stripes Group, visit www.stripesgroup.com.

About MyWebGrocer, Inc.:
MyWebGrocer, founded in 1999 and based in Colchester, VT, is a founder‐owned and managed software‐as‐a‐service company providing online commerce, communications and digital media services to leading grocery store chains and consumer packaged goods companies while also operating the nation’s largest grocery ad network. MyWebGrocer has been profitable nearly since inception and has established itself as the leader in the industry with over 5,000 grocery stores nationwide using their platform and over 60 globally recognized brands, including Kelloggs, Unilever, Nestle and P&G, reaching 4 million monthly shoppers on their industry‐leading grocery ad network.