Grocery stores are among the oldest types of retail businesses, but the industry’s landscape is always changing. Today, grocery ecommerce is the new force shaping the market.
If you want your online grocery store to meet customer expectations in 2024 and beyond, it’s essential to deploy robust mobile strategies that will lead to long-term success.
Mobile grocery: An important emerging market
Most modern consumers use their phones for almost every purpose: communication, entertainment, networking, and shopping. That impact is being felt in online retail across all industries.
Mobile sales have slowly overtaken other channels to become the dominant mode of transactions online. In 2024, mobile ecommerce sales amounted to $2.5 trillion and represented 60% of all ecommerce sales across the globe.
Grocery ecommerce stores must respond to the emerging mobile commerce trend (m-commerce). Online grocery customers have an even stronger preference for mobile shopping than other types of online retail.
According to a 2021 survey, nearly eight out of ten (78%) of US grocery ecommerce shoppers used mobile apps to purchase their groceries.
Undoubtedly, it’s more important than ever to cater to this growing demand for convenient grocery ecommerce solutions on mobile platforms.
4 ways to ensure grocery ecommerce success on mobile platforms
Every store owner needs to realize how important mobile optimization is for success in online grocery.
Mobile grocery strategies should feature prominently in your online store’s overall business plan. Investing resources in a mobile channel is the key to increased sales and customer satisfaction in the long run.
If your grocery store is ready to harness the power of m-commerce, follow these important mobile strategies to lay the groundwork for your store’s success.
1. Design a mobile-friendly grocery ecommerce website
Many grocery retailers grapple with the choice between having a website or an app. But why choose when it benefits your store to have both?
Optimize your website to give shoppers an easy way to access your store from their mobile devices. Web design has come a long way from the busy, clunky browser windows of the early 2000s.
Things like a smooth shopping experience and seamless mobile browsing have become common today. .
Apply these important mobile strategies to make your grocery website accessible to all shoppers:
- Optimize product pages by including strong visuals and avoiding large blocks of text
- Use clear, large buttons for essential functions like “add to cart” and “complete payment”
- Ensure the website is easy to navigate
- Increase page loading speed by compressing images
2. Invest in specialized grocery ecommerce mobile app development
A mobile-friendly website is a good starting point, but it’s not enough to let you take full advantage of m-commerce’s potential.
To get the most out of this lucrative channel, you will need to build a native app for mobile platforms like iOS and Android. It’s the best way to meet customer expectations.
Data from Google shows that the number of mobile users searching for grocery apps increased by 900% in the span of just two years.
It is crucial to capture the mobile audience for consistent revenue and long-term success.
Building a user-friendly, feature-rich native app is one of the most reliable mobile strategies for grocery ecommerce success.
Despite this, a consumer survey conducted in 2024 found that only 31% of consumers were fully satisfied with their mobile grocery shopping experience.
Businesses need to include features that improve the grocery app’s user experience (UX). Here are some examples:
- Personalized product recommendations
- Quick and powerful product search feature
- Convenient shortcuts to add items to a shopping cart and complete the checkout process
- Simple signup process on desktop and mobile
3. Use location-based marketing for mobile grocery customers
The difference between ecommerce consumers and m-commerce shoppers is that the latter are nearly always online. Mobile users are connected to the internet even while on the move, and that location data can be used for targeted marketing strategies.
Location-based marketing can help drive traffic for your online grocery store and increase footfall to your brick-and-mortar shop at the same time. You can use simple tactics to improve sales for your grocery ecommerce store.
For example, push notifications can inform app users about deals in stores that are close by. Location data and purchase history can be used to send customers a personalized list of promotions in stores near them.
These simple mobile strategies increase customer engagement and brand awareness in your local market.
4. Offer online grocery shoppers mobile payment options
If you want your mobile grocery store to experience sustained growth and sales, providing customers with secure and convenient mobile payment methods is a must.
The payment gateway you choose for your grocery ecommerce platform must be easy to use and ensure the security of customers’ payment details, while also enhancing your store’s customer experience (CX).
Once you’ve integrated the right payment gateway into your mobile grocery store, you will see your customers’ checkout experience become more safe and streamlined.
Conclusion
With a growing customer base and new sales opportunities, mobile commerce represents an exciting opportunity for grocery ecommerce retailers.
However, it’s important to approach the arena of m-commerce with a clear business plan. The best way to ensure success for an online grocery store is to implement mobile strategies, including:
- Mobile-friendly website design
- Native mobile app development
- Location-based marketing campaigns
- Secure mobile payment options
You can lay the foundation for a thriving mobile grocery business by focusing on these areas.
For retailers looking to build a comprehensive grocery ecommerce solution, Wave Grocery provides the perfect foundation.
Tailor-made for omnichannel grocery, you can build your own mobile grocery app according to your own specifications with Wave Grocery.
