According to data presented by Kantar Worldpanel in the report Balance y Perspectivas Gran Consumo 2015, last year, hypermarkets, supermarkets and discount shops accounted for 53% of family expenditure on fresh produce. It is a figure that, according to the 2016 report, will remain stable but will vary in the coming years due to the growth of e-commerce and it is precisely the food sector that will boost online sales.
Customers look for deals
As Mercabarna points out in its 22nd study on e-commerce and food, users spend a yearly average of 1,100 euros spread over almost 15 online purchases and with an average bill of 70 euros per transaction.
According to this report, only 13% of customers add fresh produce to their virtual shopping trolley, an average figure that Ulabox far surpasses. "Some 60% of customers include fresh produce, which means that we quadruple the average for the sector," points out the CEO of the online supermarket, Jaume Gomà, who believes that its success lies in the great variety of brands it offers. "There is no problem of demand or interest from people, it is a problem of supply," he says.
Gomà says that the sale of fresh produce on an hourly basis is what brings in the largest volume of business, which makes him believe that the strategy of "not thinking obsessively about the client" in favour of valuing "the context" is one of the keys of success. And that means not prioritising price in favour of other elements, such as quality or the convenience of shopping at any time from home. "It is hard to get people to repeat if the offer is not adequate," he insists.
The large supermarket chains that include online sales do have a selection of items and different brands, although on-site purchases continue to be their main source of business. They are not 100% digital like those shops set up in recent years, nor do they have the same capacity of attracting clients who do this type of shopping, nor is their business model always as well thought out. All of this leads professor Marcos to think that online sales generate losses for them: "All of them lose money, there is not a single one that makes a profit from it." So why do they offer the service? "Because the competition does and they cannot afford to be left behind," is his response.
A young customer without much time
The profile of an online client is a young customer, but also someone who works a lot and who has little time and who puts convenience first. To this list, the Escodi manager, Núria Beltran, adds another type of customer: men. "The inclusion of men into shopping is recent and growing," she points out, and she describes the typical customer as someone who "has no time and who wants to shop quickly, which makes it more likely he will include fresh produce in his online purchase."
Another type of customer who uses e-commerce is someone looking for a deal. "These are people of a certain cultural level who, whatever their age, shop healthily," says Beltran. The online world allows them to break barriers, not to depend on distributors and to get closer to the producer to acquire the products directly from them, without intermediaries. "For them, the online channel is an opportunity and they probably have a great dynamic effect on retail," she says, "while with other clients everything depends on the company strategy to encourage them to complete their purchases in the shop."
A boost for the small producer
With the number of online supermarkets on the rise, along with local shops that provide an online service through platforms like Glovo or Deliberry pto make the deliveries, the main beneficiary, according to the Escodi manager, is the small producer. But this producer is at the same time the one who most helps to boost e-commerce, says Beltran in reference to the search for quality and products that avoids the uniformity of private brands and what the large chains offer.
Another option is to become part of the online supermarkets. In Ulabox's case, Gomà tells VIA Empresa, its suppliers are both small operators who have stalls in local markets or traditional shops as well as wholesalers in Mercabarna. For traders, this is a "an outlet to continue growing without incurring high structural costs because you have a large customer base and technology and operations that are already working," says the CEO.
Finally, there is the option of setting up one's own shop, as in the case of Peixos Ripoll Estera, which has a stall in the Boqueria market. In 2012, they made the leap into the digital market as a way of facing the crisis and the decline in customer numbers due to the closure of the car park. "It was difficult for individuals to come to the centre on the metro or by bus and so we had the idea of setting up an online shop to help them make their purchases," recalls the firm's manager, Lluïsa Ripoll.
Now, revenue from physical and digital sales are more or less equal, but the online part is slightly ahead and the forecast is it will continue to grow. This way they keep their daily customers who make small purchases, who are often local people, and tie in larger purchases made over the internet. "The bill is usually higher because people only make a purchase every two or three weeks. They subscribe, tell us their preferences and 24 hours before we propose a shopping list to them. If they accept it, the next day we deliver it to them," she says about the service's logistics.
The customers receives their goods at home at the time they want and they know that the produce arrives fresh, filleted or sliced how they prefer, and in the exact quantity they need. Everything is ready to cook or freeze without having to do anything else. "All it takes is three clicks," adds Ripoll.
In her case, the investment requires no more than finding a company to serve the online shop already serving restaurants and hotels and so already has a fleet of available vehicles that do home deliveries in the afternoons. That is why she believes it was the right choice and one that allows them to stayupdated on the latest trends in the digitalisation of everyday life.
Improvement to grow
Despite all the data and the real cases of companies showing that there are no major obstacles that will slow the growth of e-commerce, professor Josep Maria Marcos points to time and distribution as elements to improve: "Fruit and vegetables are easy, meat too because it is a very industrialised sector and the customer is used to getting it packaged, but fresh fish is a different matter." It is a more delicate product and quickly reaches its sell-by date, which means some companies have to alter their strategy and optimise their resources to be able to offer it. The best option, says the Ulabox founder, Jaume Gomà, is the just in time philosophy, a model that allows them "to deliver straight away and preserve the product's freshness."
Bearing in mind all of these aspects, Marcos suggests that e-commerce will grow slowly: "For years we have heard how its growth will be spectacular but the food sector has not lived up to expectations. And in the future we will not see such a radical change because the chain needs to be improved in the final kilometre." More than likely, it will not happen until deliveries can be made within very short-term margins and the logistics and sustainability are improved.