Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

ShopRite’s new Weekly Specials Widget got some much deserved love today from the blog “avkthinks” last Monday.  The writer clearly explains why the widget is successful and highlighted some major reasons:

High prices in food and gas breaking your bank? Beat the rise in prices with online grocery. Online grocery shopping enables consumers to find money saving items and to get those items ordered and delivered in a matter of minutes. Some of MyWebGrocer’s clients featuring this service are Shoprite, Lowes Foods, and Big Y.

The price of gas has undoubtedly changed the way consumers make purchases. These changes range from cutting back on discretionary spending, to the way people get their items from store to home. From a Nielsen Global Online Survey, 94% of US consumers are shopping online. In a recent story from RIS Magazine, there has been a shift from in-store shopping to online and is related to sky high fuel costs, “The rising price of gasoline is reflected in American attitudes towards shopping according to a consumer survey released by iCongo and conducted by Harris Interactive. One third (33 percent) of online U.S. adults indicated they are more likely to shop online rather than in-person at a store due to the high price of gasoline.” The amount of gas consumers use traveling to and from the store could be retained by opting for grocery delivery thus saving money on gasoline purchases.

In a response to the economy MyWebGrocer has developed a money saving widget for online user’s to download. Shoprite was the first store to roll out this widget and has seen weekly increases in downloads. Widgets pull content or services from some other place on the Web and in this case a retail grocer’s website. It is a mechanism for portable content, commerce, community and transactions. User’s can download it for their Blogger, TypePad, Pageflakes, Netvibes, Freewebs and iGoogle pages. This allows them to save time and money by receiving their favorite content, information, and services directly on their social networking pages. User’s log on to these pages and the widget will display grocery items that are on sale in their favorite store. From there, the user can click and build their printable online shopping list. Creating a shopping list from items that are on sale will save the end user money. Consumers will always be aware of what is on sale.

Many people spend more time on the job during tough economic times. Interestingly enough, productivity goes up because people work harder to keep their jobs as well as make their companies remain strong. For an employee to spend a few more hours on the job and still get the grocery shopping complete, they will need online grocery shopping. Users can pick up their orders or have them delivered. The minimal service fee is well worth while when you weigh the quality and value of your time. Plus a personal shopper picks all the best items for the consumers so they are not spending time looking for what they need.

Cheers!
-Courtney