Market Track PerspectiveTM
Driving Shopper Behavior in Grocery
Survey results show high propensity to change stores and brands based on deals
Market Track’s
Shopper Insight Series
C
ompetition in the grocery space has never been more intense. As trade class lines
blur and a larger focus is placed on grocery items in mass, dollar, club and drug
stores, grocery retailers have had to expand their competitive set considerably. Add
to that an uncertain economy, increased fuel costs and extreme weather in many
parts of the country, and you now have shoppers who have become much more
price conscious and promotionally driven. As we discovered in our recent Grocery Shopper
Insight Survey, shoppers are more actively looking for where to find the best price on
household items and groceries, and have a very high propensity to switch stores and brands.
It has become increasingly difficult to understand how to incent an everyday shopper
on their weekly grocery shopping trip to pick one grocer over another, or one brand over
another. How do those in the grocery space ensure they are capturing the attention of an
increasingly discriminating shopper?
Shoppers are selective—over 40% are going to more than one store to complete
their grocery shopping, with three-quarters citing “better prices on certain products and
categories” as the reason for shopping at multiple stores, according to our recent Grocery
Shopper Insight Survey. The majority of grocery shoppers (72%) are also seeking promotions
for every type of grocery trip, whether they are buying only a handful of items, or filling their
cart. They hold little allegiance to a select store or brand if presented the right promotional
value—53% of grocery shoppers are either likely or very likely to change where they stockup on groceries if they knew prices were lower somewhere else, while only 22% are either
unlikely or very unlikely to switch. Similarly, 85% of grocery shoppers said they try new
brands when they are on sale.
Fundamentally, shopper behavior has changed, and strategies and tactics to drive
behavior continue to evolve. Developing a promotional strategy that differentiates a retailer
enough to cause a grocery shopper to change where they typically shop, or differentiates a
brand enough to cause shoppers to change what they typically buy, is a task that requires a
detailed understanding of who their target shoppers are, the buying behaviors and tendencies
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Throughout this Perspective we will
be unpacking the responses from
our most recent Grocery Shopper
Insight Survey. In a study of 1,000
individuals that are either primarily
responsible or share responsibility
for purchasing groceries for
their households, we identify the
differences in buying behaviors
and trip drivers between shopper
demographics. The survey results
allow us to contrast the profiles of
grocery cart-fillers versus basketfillers, frequent versus infrequent
grocery shoppers, young urban
grocery shoppers versus older,
rural grocery shoppers, and how
promotions impact the behaviors
of each.
We then discuss an application
of these findings to promotional
planning in order to understand
how different category allocations,
product allocations, and
promotion types and overlays
better attract one demographic
versus another. Please note that
this Perspective reports Market
Track’s initial findings from our
Grocery Shopper Insight Survey
conducted in February 2014. We
will provide additional shopper
insights in publications throughout
the course of 2014. Please reach
out to your Market Track account
team for an advanced look into
the results of our Grocery Shopper
Insight Survey.
Source: Market Track Grocery Shopper Insight Survey
Figure 1: Grocery shopper media type usage
of their target shoppers, and how competitive promotional
patterns and strategies may be inhibiting their ability to attract their
target shopper. Once that understanding is achieved, consistent
monitoring, measurement, and adaptability are critical to sustaining
their promotional strategy.
What promotions actually drive results? How can retailers and
manufacturers in the grocery space optimize their promotional
efforts to increase sales? In this issue of Market Track’s Shopper
Insight Series, we will provide a process that will help retailers and
manufacturers understand how successful they are at engaging
their target shoppers using promotions, and how to identify
and execute the right changes and adaptations to promotional
strategy in order to attract new shoppers to shop their stores or
buy their brands.
Promotions and pricing are central to shopper behavior
Essential to any effective promotional strategy for grocery
retailers and manufacturers is a knowledge of the week to week
buying behaviors of grocery shoppers—particularly, the segment
of shoppers the retailer or manufacturer wants to attract. As we
discussed in our Reach & Impact Shopper Insight Survey in 2013, if
retailers or manufacturers fail to reach their target shoppers with
the right promotional message at the right time, they risk losing
that shopper not just for that purchase, but for future purchases
as well. With that in mind, in our Grocery Shopper Insight
Survey, we first set out to understand the buying behaviors of
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Market Track PerspectiveTM
grocery shoppers to create a foundation from which a winning
promotional strategy can be formed.
Among the most important initial findings from our survey
results was the resounding response that promotions are essential
to shoppers’ grocery trips. We probed our survey respondents
on everything from whether or not
Among all
they use promotions, to what types
of promotions they use, to which
demographics,
of their behaviors are governed by
print is the
promotions. The results showed that
most prevalent today’s shoppers are heavily reliant
on the promotional engagements of
way shoppers
retailers and manufacturers to pick
stores, brands, purchase quantities,
are looking for
basket and cart additions, unplanned
promotions
purchases, and more.
Figure 1 shares the likelihood with
prior to their
which shoppers will use different
grocery trips
promotional media types to find
promotions for their grocery trips.
The top media type by a wide margin was print, with just under
90% of grocery shoppers claiming they either “Definitely” or
“Probably” will use print ads to find promotions prior to a store trip.
Printed coupons was a close second among grocery shoppers at
about 80%, followed by Online promotions and Digital Coupons,
both of which received roughly 55%. At the low-usage end of
Source: Market Track Grocery Shopper Insight Survey
Figure 2: Top influences in deciding where to shop
the spectrum was Smartphones or Tablets, for which over 50% of
With the vast majority of shoppers making trips to buy groceries
survey respondents said they either “Definitely” or “Probably” will each week, it is even more important for retailers and manufacturers
not use either to find promotions prior to grocery shopping trips.
to understand the trip frequency behaviors of their target audience
Beyond simply understanding which media types are being in order to develop a promotional plan that is differentiated for that
used to find promotions, we found that of the deciding factors segment of shoppers. Our survey found that grocery trip frequency
that determine where a shopper brings their business, promotions can vary based on a wide range of factors. For example, among rural,
and pricing is the top influencer—even more
suburban, and urban shoppers, we found there
influential than how close shoppers live to Not surprisingly,
was quite a bit of overlap in how frequently
their nearest grocery retailer. Out of seven pricing and
each group shops for groceries, yet there was
factors survey respondents were asked to
one key differentiator for urban shoppers that
rank in terms of what influences their store promotions are the
should impact how retailers promote to that
choice, over 55% ranked promotions and most influential factors
segment.
pricing as the top influencer, and just under
More than 30% of rural, suburban, and
90% ranked promotions and pricing in their in helping shoppers
urban shoppers claimed to shop for groceries
top three factors (see figure 2). Grocery decide where they will
once per week, while over 70% of each group
shoppers are not only using promotions, but
claimed to shop for groceries either once per
the vast majority are also relying heavily on shop for groceries
week, or 2-3 times per week. However, nearly
promotions to make decisions on where to
10% of urban shoppers claimed to shop daily
shop and what to buy.
for groceries, as opposed to less than 5% each for rural and suburban
shoppers, which opens up both opportunity and competition to
Trip Frequency: More urban “Daily” grocery
win shopping trips every day, particularly for store locations in
shoppers than rural or suburban
urban areas. With one out of every ten urban shoppers making
Grocery shopping is a common calendar item to find on anybody’s
grocery store visits every day, retailers competing for this segment
weekly schedule. Whether the grocery shopper is making a trip to
of shoppers require a consistent line of omni-channel promotional
replenish their entire kitchen, or stopping by the grocery store to
engagement, rather than promoting via a single weekly circular.
pick up an ingredient or two for dinner that evening, we found that
There are opportunities to engage more readily through digital
84% of shoppers buy groceries in-store at least once per week.
promotions, such as email, online, mobile and social media.
The Power of Market Intelligence
3
Understanding who
your target shopper
is and the frequency
and size of their
trip is critical in
crafting an effective
promotionial strategy.
There is opportunity
to communicate
more frequently and
through additional
media types to
shoppers making
smaller, more
frequent trips.
Source: Market Track Grocery Shopper Insight Survey
Figure 3: Size of Grocery Basket by Living Situation
Trip Frequency: Higher income shoppers
make more frequent grocery trips
There were also correlations to be found between annual
household income and how frequently grocery shoppers make
trips to the store. Of the different annual household incomes
we polled, those who make more than $100,000 per year
claimed to shop more frequently than shoppers of lower income
levels. The group of shoppers that make more than $100,000
had the highest percentage of respondents (over 90%) of any
income demographic group claim to shop either once per
week or more. Conversely, the group of shoppers that claimed
an annual household income of less than $25,000 had the
highest percentage of respondents (over 25%) claim to shop for
groceries 2-3 times per month or less.
Depending on which income levels retailers or manufacturers
are trying to attract to their stores, there is opportunity to
modify their promotional frequency to best suit their target
demographic. If a retailer wants to attract shoppers with an
annual income of $25,000 or less, for example, and they currently
are publishing multiple circulars per week, there may be an
opportunity to save on printing costs by pairing back their
promotional calendar without the risk of losing their target
shoppers to competitors. Similarly, if a retailer or manufacturer
wants to target a shopper with an annual income of over
$100,000, additional promotional investment may be required to
keep the more regular shopper engaged.
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Market Track PerspectiveTM
Purchase Quantity: Who is building carts?
Who sticks to baskets?
Equally important to understanding the frequency with which
a retailer’s target shoppers buy groceries is understanding the
typical size of their target shopper’s basket or cart. Our survey
found that only 65% of shoppers claimed to shop for groceries
at grocery stores most frequently—as opposed to Mass or Drug
stores—yet that number erodes further when looking at stockup trips alone. Only 54% of shoppers said they stock-up at
grocery stores, making it especially important for grocery stores
seeking cart-fillers to create a promotional plan that will appeal
to that shopper segment.
If a retailer’s target shopper tends to build a larger basket,
that retailer may more successfully attract their shoppers using
basket-building promotional tactics such as multiple purchase
offers or buy/get offers. For a manufacturer targeting shoppers
that average 20 items or less per grocery trip, working with
retailers to make sure their products are promoted with a % Off
or $ Off overlay, and not a multiple purchase offer, is important to
attracting their target shoppers.
Figure 3 shares an interesting perspective on the types of
shoppers that are loading up their carts, versus the segments
of shoppers that are keeping their baskets lean. Shoppers were
asked how many items they typically buy on a single grocery trip,
from 1 to 10, to over 50 items. When comparing the cart-filling
behaviors of shoppers from different living situations, we found
Across nearly every demographic we
polled in our Grocery Shopper Insight
Survey, five product subcategories were
identified as the top subcategories that
would cause shoppers to go to the store
to make a purchase.
illustrates the importance of understanding how different
shoppers behave, and the implications of varying shopper
behaviors to a retailer or manufacturer’s promotional plan.
Figure 4: Grocery Category Trip Drivers by Demographic
that shoppers that either live alone OR live with friends have a
tendency to build smaller baskets.
Nearly 60% of shoppers living alone, and about 50% of
those living with friends claimed to build baskets of 20 items
or less in a single grocery trip. Though the results for shoppers
living alone were fairly expected, it is an important finding that
a minority of those living with friends purchase groceries for
their whole household. Particularly in areas with many young,
single shoppers who have roommates, retailer and manufacturer
promotions may be more effectively constructed to attract the
smaller basket builders who buy groceries for themselves, rather
than the stock-up shoppers buying for an entire household.
Shoppers living with a family proved to be the largest cartfillers of the four groups, by contrast. About 50% of shopper
respondents living with family claimed to purchase over 31 items
per grocery trip; 17% claimed to buy over 50 items per trip, by far
the largest percentage of respondents among the different living
situation segments.
Needless to say, shoppers filling a cart with 50+ items per
grocery will be attracted by a different promotional value
proposition than shoppers who live alone or live with friends.
The separation between the behaviors of these two groups
Category Mix: Secondary Trip Driving
Categories are Critical for Differentiation
There are a variety of factors that influence a grocery shopper’s
decision to shop at a given store that fall outside of a retailer’s
control—for instance, the proximity of the store to the shopper’s
home. Other than opening a new store location closer to that
shopper’s home, there is nothing a retailer can do to change an
influencer like proximity. Within the spectrum of factors retailers
have more control over are the promotions and discounts for
their products, store cleanliness and layout, level of customer
service, loyalty programs and perks, among others.
One critical factor that can be easily overlooked, but which
retailers can control, is the product subcategory assortment within
a retailer’s omni-channel promotions, irrespective of pricing.
Grocers will typically promote an array of different products from
each department within their four walls each week, but choosing
which products to promote at the subcategory level should be
supported by methodical decision-making.
We heard from grocery shoppers of a variety of different
backgrounds about which product subcategories, if on
promotion, would cause them to go to the store to purchase
the product. Beyond the top five subcategories shoppers from
nearly every demographic identified as trip drivers, there was
significant disagreement around the next 10 to 15 trip driving
subcategories—an area that will prove critical for retailers and
manufacturers to understand as they decide on a promotional
strategy that will impact their target shoppers.
Across nearly every demographic we polled in our Grocery
Shopper Insight Survey, beef, chicken, sodas, milk, and coffee were
identified as the top subcategories that would cause shoppers to
go to the store to purchase—as shown in figure 4. About 52% of
shopper respondents ages 21-29 identified Beef as a grocery trip
driving subcategory for them, and about 59% of respondents
with an annual income of over $100,000 also identified beef
as their top trip driver, yet only 8% of 21-29 year olds surveyed
claimed an annual household income of over $100,000. There
was little demographic overlap between those two groups,
yet both groups identified beef as a leading grocery trip driver.
The implication for retailers is that it is a safe bet to promote a
category like beef prominently across all media types, as it is
The Power of Market Intelligence
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Each of the three meat
products at the top of the
Vons circular front cover
were identified as top 10
trip driving subcategories
by shopper respondents, or
subcategories that shoppers
would go to the store to buy
if they were on promotion.
Despite allocating roughly
half of their front page to
some of the top trip driving
subcategories, Vons did
promote two products that
were identified by less than
15% of shoppers as trip
drivers.
Figure 5: Front Page Trip Driver Heat Map
Retailers need to
look past the top
five to ten product
subcategories
that shoppers
identified to
leverage the
variations in
trip drivers
among different
demographics.
a subcategory that attracts
nearly all demographics.
That said, beef is a heavily
promoted subcategory among
most grocery retailers. For
example, in the 12 month
period ending in January
2014, beef was promoted on
the front page of Kroger and
Safeway banner circulars every
week, and on the front page
of Ahold banner circulars in
all but five weeks. This is not
a surprising discovery, given
shoppers want promotions
on the beef subcategory, yet
retailers are still left to question
how they can differentiate their subcategory allocation to edge
out their competition. To get a better idea on how to approach
this question, retailers need to look past the top five to ten product
subcategories that shoppers identified to leverage the variations in
trip drivers among different demographics.
We reviewed the 11th through 15th most selected trip
driving subcategories—identified as the “Varying Trip
Drivers by Demographic” in figure 4—among the same
respondent demographics. Comparing the top five trip driving
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Market Track PerspectiveTM
subcategories to those ranked 11 through 15, there are clear
disparities in category preference between demographics. One
example is pasta, which 26% of 21-29 year old respondents
identified as a trip driver when promoted—the only
demographic in this example to identify pasta in the top 11-15.
Likewise, butter was uniquely identified by 28 % of shopper
respondents with an annual income of greater than $100,000,
alcohol/spirits was uniquely identified by 30% of respondents
living with friends, and fruit was uniquely identified by 29% of
those living in a household with five to six people.
It is in this set of subcategories where grocers can measure
how well they are promoting to their target shoppers. If, for
instance, HEB in Dallas instituted a new strategy to attract a
larger segment of shoppers ages 21-29 to their stores in 2014,
based on the preferences of our survey respondents, they may
have more success reaching that demographic with a pasta
promotion instead of a vegetables or butter promotion. To
form a more complete promotional strategy, HEB could then
review the competitive activity of Tom Thumb—an in-market
competitor—to identify when they promoted vegetables or
butter in 2013, and add pasta to their promotional calendar
on those weeks, knowing 21-29 year olds may not find the
subcategory mix at Tom Thumb attractive.
The subcategory allocation within any promotional media
type has a direct impact on a retailer’s ability to drive grocery
shopping trips week to week. Using a combination of competitive
Though Cub Foods
promoted two of the
top ten trip driving
categories among
grocery shoppers on
their 1/12/14 circular
front page, there may
have been opportunity
to improve their trip
drivers on the bottom
half of the page,
depending on the
segment of shoppers
they were trying to
reach.
Figure 6: Front Page Trip Driver Heat Map
promotional data, along with an understanding of the tendencies
of their target grocery shoppers, will add a method by which a
promotional plan can be constructed to drive specific shopper
behavior, in accordance with a retailer’s overall strategy.
Translating Behaviors to Promotional Strategy
Understanding shopper behaviors and grocery trip drivers is only
useful if the data and information can translate into effective
strategy changes, a process in which Market Track specializes in
our day to day engagement with both retailer and manufacturer
clients. To this point we have shared some of the initial grocery
shopper behavioral and trip driving findings across a variety of
demographics. In this next section, we will provide some examples
of how to take action on these findings using real circulars.
Figure 5 depicts the front page of the Vons, Los Angeles circular
from January 15th , and figure 6 shows the Cub Foods, Minneapolis
circular from January 12th, 2014. Both Vons and Cub Foods
successfully represented a wide spectrum of products from different
departments on this front page, though according to the trip drivers
identified by shoppers in our Grocery Shopper Insight Survey, the
subcategory mix could have been further optimized.
The legend in figure 5 and 6 identifies to what extent each
product featured on the front page was identified by shopper
respondents to deem it a trip driver. Each of the three meat
products at the top of the Vons circular front cover were identified
as top ten trip driving subcategories by shopper respondents, or
subcategories that shoppers would go to the store to buy if they
were on promotion. Similarly, the chicken and beef featured on
the Cub Foods circular front page fell into the top ten as well.
More than 30% of shopper respondents claimed they would go to
the store to buy products like the pork ribs (pork), ground sirloin
(beef ), and fried chicken (chicken) at Vons, and the boneless
chicken breasts (chicken) and strip steak (beef ) at Cub Foods.
The bottom half of the Vons circular page also featured some
key trip driving subcategories in the New York strip steak, bacon,
carbonated soft drinks, and cheese, all of which were identified
as trip drivers by more than 30% of shoppers. Conversely, the
bottom half of the Cub Foods circular did not feature any top ten
trip drivers, instead promoting products that were identified by
only 15-30% of grocery shoppers as drivers, such as juice drinks,
potato chips, and canned vegetables.
Despite allocating roughly half of their front page to some
of the top trip driving subcategories, Vons did promote two
products that were identified by less than 15% of shoppers as trip
drivers. Only 11% of shoppers claimed crackers as a trip driving
subcategory, while only 10% of shoppers claimed condiments as
a trip driver. These figures suggest that the space allocated to the
Ritz crackers and Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauce products could have
been better allocated to subcategories that would cause a higher
percentage of shoppers to make a trip to the store to purchase. The
Target circular cover in figure 7 provides a second example of how
retailers can dissect their subcategory allocation to understand
The Power of Market Intelligence
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About Market Track
Market Track is a market intelligence firm
dedicated to increasing our customers’
returns on their promotional investments
and providing real-time visibility into
e-commerce pricing. We support our 850+
clients through monitoring and analyzing
over 200 U.S. and Canadian markets for
every channel of trade and 1 billion buy
pages from 3,000 global merchants,
enabling dynamic decision making by
turning data into actionable insights.
Figure 7: Front Page Trip Driver Heat Map, Target Circular, 6/30/2013
how successfully they appealed to shoppers. In this case study, however, shoppers were asked
about trip driving subcategories specifically for the Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day
holidays. We found that trip drivers changed radically from a standard grocery trip to a grocery
trip for an event or holiday, and figure 7 illustrates how Target successfully created a front page
subcategory allocation to match the preferences of July 4th grocery shoppers.
All six of the products Target promoted on their 6/30/13 circular front page fell within
the top 15 subcategories shoppers selected as items they would add to their cart if they
were discounted prior to any of the three summer holidays. Sodas, hot dogs, and beef, in
particular, made up three of the top four likely cart-additions prior to July 4th, with 30%
or more of respondents selecting each. Target constructed a circular front page that was
specifically suited to build the baskets of July 4th grocery shoppers.
In summary
Perhaps the most critical lesson shoppers taught us in our Grocery Shopper Insight Survey
was the importance of making data-supported decisions during promotional planning.
The disparity in the behaviors and preferences of different grocery shopper segments
requires that retailers and manufacturers learn about their target shopper, and what their
competitors are doing to attract their target shoppers. Additionally, with the availability of
a variety of promotional and product information sources for grocery shoppers’, there is an
unprecedented willingness to change their preferences or behaviors to find the best value.
If retailers and manufacturers fail to engage their target shoppers with regular promotional
messaging, they risk losing their shoppers to competing stores or brands for both current
and future purchases.
In this first iteration of our Grocery Shopper Insight Series, we introduced the framework
for a process for combining competitive promotional data with shopper insights to
achieve a data-supported, targeted promotional plan. Over the course of the next several
months, we will narrow our focus on the different stages of the ad planning process, and
recommend some best practices for incorporating both competitive promotional data and
shopper insights into each stage. Our goal is to share the process through which many
of our clients have improved their ability to target their strategic shopper segments with
relevant, timely promotions.
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Key Takeaways
• Out of seven factors grocery shoppers
were asked to rank in terms of what
influences their store choice, over 55%
ranked promotions and pricing as the
top influencer, and just under 90%
ranked promotions and pricing in their
top three factors.
• Just under 90% of grocery shoppers
claiming they either “Definitely” or
“Probably” will use print ads to find
promotions prior to a store trip. Printed
coupons was a close second among
grocery shoppers at about 80%.
• Nearly 60% of shoppers living alone,
and about 50% of those living with
friends claimed to build baskets of 20
items or less in a single grocery trip.
By comparison, only about 25% of
respondents living with family (children
living in home) claimed to build baskets
of 20 items or less on their grocery trips.
• Beyond the top five subcategories
shoppers from nearly every
demographic identified as trip drivers
(Beef, Chicken, Carbonated Soft Drinks,
Milk, Coffee), there was significant
disagreement between grocery shopper
segments around the next 10 to 15 trip
driving subcategories. These secondary
trip driver categories will prove critical
for retailers and manufacturers to
understand as they decide on a
promotional strategy that will impact
their target shoppers.
Learn More
For more insight into the entire
promotional landscape or
an analysis of your digital
and print strategies, call
Market Track at 1.800.235.3781
or e-mail
[email protected].
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