Target beat both Walmart and Kroger when Brick Meets Click evaluated how well these leading national retailers deliver a seamless grocery shopping experience, growing out of their respective omnichannel strategies.
“If the goal of omnichannel is to enable shopping from anywhere, for anything, and any way a customer wants, then the seamless shopping rating highlights progress and opportunities against that goal,” said David Bishop, partner at Brick Meets Click. “And, for seamless shopping to have a positive impact on a retailer’s results, customers must have access to the solutions, be attracted to the perceived benefits, and enjoy better outcomes from using these solutions.”
Target earned the highest composite rating (3.4 out of five), reflecting that it is ahead of both Kroger (2.8 out of five) and Walmart (2.3 out of five) when it comes to providing digital solutions that customers can leverage to improve the shopping experience regardless of whether it’s online or at the store.
The composite ratings reflect each retailer’s performance to-date at delivering a seamless grocery shopping experience to its customers across multiple factors captured under three components:
Accessibility
What share of the retailer’s customers has access to the full menu of the retailer’s shopping tools and services? Target is further along with rolling out its various online shopping options, which in turn encourages increased penetration and usage of its mobile app and the features it offers that also benefits in-store shopping.
Attractiveness
Are the perceived benefits of the tools and services strong enough to convert interest into trial? Target slightly trails Kroger on this component mainly because customers are not able to buy frozen or refrigerated products via Target’s store pickup services. Otherwise, each retailer has an opportunity to integrate shopping solutions into a single app.
Acceptability
Do the solutions improve customer outcomes across the shopping experience? Related to finding products, Target is doing a better job via its search and in-store navigation capabilities. It is also helping customers consider their choices based on ratings, reviews, and visibility into in-store inventory levels. While all three can improve the checkout process, Target currently has a slightly more customer-friendly set of tools.
“Although seamless shopping is an evolving concept, retailers of all sizes could benefit from applying this framework to understand how they’re performing and where they should focus more resources to generate stronger results,” Bishop added. “We know that an improved customer experience leads to stronger customer retention, higher spending rates, and more customer referrals or recommendations.”
