Published in 2018 by Food Marketing Institute
For more than four decades, FMI has been tracking trends among grocery shoppers in the U.S., attending to where, how, and why they shop and what issues are most important to them as food shoppers.
FSI utilizes this data to help you understand issues that drive changing shopping behaviors and share the unfolding future of food retailing. Insights to these trends can help financial institutions operating inside a retail environment enhance their relationships with shoppers to meet their evolving needs.
Grocery Spending Weekly
Grocery spending and shipping trips remain steady with spending inching up slowly over a long period of time. Shoppers report spending an average of $109 per week.
Grocery Trips Weekly
Similarly, despite inroads made by online grocery shopping, the average shopper continues to report approximately 1.6 shopping trips to a grocery retailer per week.
The study takes a fresh approach to account for the number of weekly grocery trips in multi-person households. With the increasing practice of co-shopping, talking to a single household member may no longer provide a full picture of that household’s grocery-shopping routines and needs. In addition to asking shoppers how many grocery shopping trips they, themselves, make each week, the survey asked how many trips others in the household take without them. The average shopper reports that in addition to the 1.6 trips a week he or she takes, other household members take another 0.6, implying that the total number of trips per household each week is about 2.2.
As a financial institution you have an opportunity to meet with multiple persons in multi person families as they shop each week. When you are consistently being proactive and building rapport with shoppers it helps move them one step closer to doing business with your financial institution. It becomes your goal to remind them how convenient your branch is and your personality makes them want to bank with you. People do business with people they know, like and trust.
Retailers Online Tools
The use of online tools continues to grow, and Millennials continue to lead in the use of online grocery ordering as well as digital tools that support in-store shopping. However, growth in the user/shopper base of online grocery services is increasing by Gen X, Boomer and Mature aged shoppers.
Millennials continue to lead the way in the use of digital technology to support their in-store shopping. Millennials, especially those with children, manage their busy lives with high use of smartphone apps (to look up coupons, sales, recipes or product reviews or to find items in the store). For example, 56% of Millennials with children use at least one app.
As a way to connect with the shoppers, make sure financial institution staff members are familiar with their retailers’ special apps, online shopping options, where to pick up groceries, etc. Being able to assist a shopper or even recommend one of these services shows you are a great partner for your retailer. It also gives you an opportunity to share about your financial institution’s mobile services.