The biggest change taking place in grocery may not be happening on the shelves at all. It is happening inside the shopping basket.
Across modern grocery retail, the traditional weekly supermarket shop is being challenged by consumers making smaller, more frequent purchases. That does not necessarily mean people are buying less food. It can mean they are becoming more selective about when they shop, what they buy and how much they are prepared to carry home.
For supermarkets, this creates a surprisingly important question: if the customer is no longer filling a large trolley every week, what should the store be designed to do?
Fresh produce, prepared food, high-protein products, convenience meals and smaller pack formats could become increasingly important as retailers compete for these shorter shopping missions. The supermarket of the future may need to capture the customer several times a week rather than relying on one large weekly transaction.
Technology could become part of that change. Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to understand purchasing patterns, forecast demand and identify products that are likely to be relevant to individual shoppers. But the bigger opportunity may be using that information to understand what customers are not buying.
At ISN Magazine, we believe that could become one of the most valuable pieces of supermarket data. A product left behind can tell a retailer something about price, pack size, health perception, convenience or simply changing habits.
Riad Beladi, ISN Magazine, believes the industry is entering a period where retailers will have to understand the basket almost as carefully as they understand the shopper.
“The supermarket cannot simply ask what consumers bought. It increasingly needs to understand what they considered, rejected and replaced.”
The next retail battle may therefore not be about having the biggest basket. It could be about understanding why the basket is changing — and responding before the customer does.
