How to promote the purchase of time-honored, fresh products on the Internet?

During the Covid-19 crisis, French consumers have gradually preferred local shops, drive-thru or home delivery. In enormous grocery stores (GSA), e-commerce sales (drive-thru, pedestrian and home delivery) approached the threshold in 2020. 10 billion euros in turnoveri.e. annual augment of 46.5%selon Jealousy.

In this context, online sales of time-honored fresh products have also increased significantly (+69.2% in 2019-2020). However, for these “professional” products (butchers, cheese producers, fishmongers, fruit and vegetable sellers, etc.), consumers remain tied to physical stores where they can see, touch, smell and even taste them before choosing them themselves and/or being served with the wise advice of salespeople.

According to expertsthese changes in food purchasing behavior will not be just cyclical. Some current, former, or post-converter disk users should actually continue to favor this circuit. One in four customers Hypermarkets and supermarkets are also saying today that they will be less likely to come to these stores to shop, and will now prefer proximity, locality and/or drive-thru.

Virtual Reality Lessons

These changes, already underway but greatly accelerated by the current health crisis (Leclerc thus achieved drive-thru sales in 2020) we hope for 2024) certain questions arise. How can brands, beyond the challenge of the quality of orders made available to customers (selection, preparation, preservation of products, packaging, adjustment to customer expectations, etc.), promote their product offers online? fresh products and enrich specific customer experiences?

In fact, it is more complicated to integrate fresh food products, such as fruits and vegetables, into such devices, which are characterized by high inter-individual variability, real-time ripening and varied packaging (see, for example, the multitude of tomato varieties and shapes, standardized or not, whose appearance changes over time, sold in highly variable packaging and weights).

To answer these questions, we conducted several experiments in virtual laboratory stores that provided initial operational information for GSA’s digital fruit and vegetable departments.

THIS virtual lab shops are tools that have been used for about ten years by practitioners and researchers to study the behavior and perceptions of consumers confronted in a purchasing situation with various marketing stimuli (modern products, packaging, implementation plans, prices, promotions, labels, shelf retention, etc.). ). They are implemented via a computer screen (non-immersive virtual reality) or, more recently, via virtual reality (VR) goggles, which allows for a significant augment in immersion from the user’s perspective (immersive virtual reality). .

Due to technical and commercial limitations, these systems mainly integrate product offerings semi-permanent Orgrocerywhose visual representations are narrow in number (reference) and pre-established (for example, coffee bags or shoe models).

As part of our research in collaboration with the École Centrale de Nantes, which is also significant technological innovation.

Our first experiment (in immersive virtual reality) made it possible to show that the perception of the appearance and quality of fruits and vegetables practically depends on the degree of their standardization. “Slightly” or “moderately” distorted fruits and vegetables are perceived as better than “strongly” distorted ones. “Moderately” distorted products also assist build the image of the department offering more true, natural, fit and tasty products, which will certainly strengthen the image of the store and its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) mark.

Our second experimentconducted simultaneously in our virtual laboratory store (with two devices, one non-immersive, the other immersive) and in our replicated physical laboratory store, indicates that the perception of “moderately” deformed fruits and vegetables is similar across the three devices. On the other hand, consumers buy more in virtual stores (non-immersive and immersive) than in physical stores. They also tend to rely more on extrinsic cues in immersive virtual stores (prices) and intrinsic cues in the physical store (appearance of products).

VR, the future sales channel?

These first results will of course need to be enriched and supplemented to guide the operational decisions of GSA players regarding the merchandising and location of their digital fruit and vegetable departments, and more generally, their operations. However, they open up captivating avenues of research in the analysis of fresh food purchasing behavior in drive-thru locations and even tomorrow in VR with V-Commerce integration in the omnichannel strategies of food brands.

The utilize of VR in shopping is still narrow to sales support activities (virtual tour of the future kitchen at ul. IKEA) or creating events that generate traffic and connections with customers (discover perfumes for the brand Cats).

The current democratization of VR headsets, however, suggests that in the near future, these devices could become a standalone sales channel, able to complement brands’ multiple touchpoints and physical and online distribution channels, to the benefits of increasingly connected customer experiences. Projects are already being implemented, as is the app Buy+ Chinese giant Alibaba or 100% digital Nespresso store.