International Digital Marketing

When first online supermarkets were launched … they were a flop. After a long silence, the online food and grocery shopping has started to evolve and increase its popularity during recent years, thanks to ongoing development of e-commerce, Internet and mobiles. However, despite of the potential they have, the online supermarkets still reach only a small niche market.

What could bring the online grocery shopping experience closer to the mainstream?

Constantly evolving market

According to International research company IGD, the amount spent on online food and grocery shopping will reach £7.2 billion by 2014. Currently 64% of UK users have done online shopping yet according to the Office for National Statistics, only 13% have bought groceries. In Spain e-commerce is booming, but only 10.7% of the consumers have purchased groceries online. E-commerce in Italy had an estimated value of 10 billion Euros in 2009, but the online food and grocery shopping accounted only for 1.9% of the total.

In France, with a turnover of 250 million Euros, the online supermarkets represent only a small part of the French e-commerce (25 billion Euros). The amount of cyber buyers (24 million in 2009) is increasing, even though the “cyber-markets” are considered to be too expensive with 13% Internet price premium.

Online grocery shoppers

The report Online Shopping 2009 by IGD states that 30% of the online grocery shoppers purchase less often than once a month and 61% visit more than one online supermarket. 49% would like to try alternative store, yet half of users have not done so because they believe it takes too much effort to do . 34% of the surveyed wants to shop only in supermarket and 7% prefers online purchasing for food and groceries.

Convenience is the main motivation for online grocery shoppers to buy online, since it takes less time and physical effort. Overall it is perceived as a more organized shopping experience and means avoiding the queues. 61% of the current and potential online shoppers also stated that having free delivery would definitely increase their motivation to buy groceries online.

The main concern blocking the online grocery shopping is quality. Consumers do not trust companies to deliver them the freshest products and newest sold-by-date if they purchase online.

Best practice – Digital supermarket

Tesco supermarkets in South Korea decided to take it a step further to reach number two position in the country. Instead of opening more physical stores, Tesco concentrated on virtual shopping by creating digital supermarkets called Homeplus in metro stations.  The objective was to bring virtual shopping directly into consumers life. The decision was made after market survey revealed that many consumers concentrated on journeys to and from work without having time to do grocery shopping.

The company designed big screens that looked exactly like physical store shelf where users could use their Smartphones to scan the QR codes and put the products in their shopping cart. When the shopping was done, the groceries were delivered to user’s home once he returned from work.

Online shopping between November 2010 and January 2011 increased 130%, while the number of clients increased 76%. Homeplus itself became the number one online grocery store.

Multi-channel shopping experience

There is great potential in online grocery shopping, since it represents currently only a small percentage of e-commerce and there is a lot of space for growth. Consumers are already using different channels and technologies to shop online and this can be extended to online supermarkets. By offering consumers a possibility to use mobile technology, they are able to purchase on the go, and by bringing online grocery shopping into the physical world, like Tesco did in South-Korea, companies can increase awareness and offer consumers a digital in-store experience.

The future of online grocery shopping looks bright if users are given an online shopping experience that brings them the most perceived value. By offering online shoppers different purchase channels, consistent quality, free delivery and greater choice of products, companies can turn online supermarkets from a niche into mainstream.

Despite huge media coverage, the iPhone OS is actually not that popular it seems.

According to a recent study by Nielsen measuring the recent acquired Smartphones in the U.S, iPhone OS has experienced a decrease in popularity while Android OS is experiencing a steady growth.

This data combined with the ComScore study in July 2010 claiming that Blackberry owns 39.3% of the Smartphone market share in U.S. compared with 23.8% market share  iPhone has backs this up. Android OS follows the two with 17%, a number that is constantly increasing. Windows Mobile holds 11.8% of the market share, Palm 4.9% and Symbian (Nokia) only 3.2%.

What comes to Europe, it is a completely different story. The recent study by comScore reveals surprisingly that the five largest European Smartphone markets in Europe are still ruled by Nokia. A high 51.2% of Smartphone-owning respondents in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy have a Symbian OS by Nokia.

In UK and France, Symbian (Nokia) is the most popular Smartphone OS with 37.3% and 35.4% of the market share respectively. However, in both countries it is challenged by Apple’s iOS with more than 30% of the market share in France and almost 30% in UK.  In UK the third challenger is Blackberry with 16% and in France Windows Mobile with 13.8%.

In Germany Symbian (Nokia) has 51.6% of the total market share, compared with iPhone OS with 21.2% and Windows Mobile with 16%.

Surprisingly or not, the Symbian (Nokia) rules Italian and Spanish Smartphone market with a high 72.5% and 69.3% respectively. iPhone and Windows Mobile have a long way ahead in these two countries with their percentage remaining very close to 10%. And no, these two markets are not immature markets what comes to the Smartphone adoption.  They actually have the largest percentage of mobile users with a Smartphone in Europe – with 34.1% for Italy and 31.9% for Spain.

The UK, Germany and France have 28.5%, 20.3% and 19.3% Smartphone penetration respectively – while the US has 22.8%.

Now why is that?

One of the reasons could be that Smartphones such as iPhone are very expensive, or require at least £50 a month contract for two years, while Symbian phones are available at a reasonable cost to anyone who wants a Pay as you Go phone. One example is the Nokia 5230 that has sold more than 10 million handsets and has most of the features user wants from a Smartphone. It is classified in competence at the same level as the mid range Android devices and very close to the 3G and 3GS iPhones.

And why should I care?

Because if you want to get involved in mobile marketing, you need to know which mobiles your target audience is using for the simple reason that the mobile apps need to be developed with a specific operating system in mind.

If you want to reach the most of the market, but at the same time want to create buzz in press, you will not be able to choose between Apple and Android for app development in the U.S. nor between Symbian (Nokia) and Apple in Europe. For the best coverage you need to pick both and stay updated on the latest mobile trends and numbers. Press will love the iPhone app, the consumers the Symbian or Android app.

Now in 2011 everything has changed again with the new Nokia Microsoft partnership. Please find more information here.

Implementing a communication strategy in Europe can be tough. It is a special mix of different nationalities with their own language, culture, habits and preferences. And different Social Media habits.  Here the attitude “What works in NY works in LA” does not really apply: the message that works for the Nordics does not necessarily work for the French. Tools that are used in UK, are not necessarily popular in Italy.

If you are pushing your message through a Social Media tool the citizens do not use, you are wasting your money and resources. It can be the most innovative, clever campaign ever created, but if there is no one who sees it…failed. Big time.

Here is a small snapshot on the European Social Media habits based on the statistics from the Universal McCann study wave 3:

Blogs

9% of all Europeans maintain blogs or publish Web pages. Highest percentage of blog readers in Europe is in Italy (78,9%), France(78%) and Spain(77,8%) and the lowest in Hungary(50,5%), Germany(56,6%) and Austria(59,7%).  The most active blog readers are in Italy (77% reads daily or weekly), Spain (71% reads daily or weekly), Russia (67% reads daily or weekly) and France (66% reads daily or weekly).

However, writing blogs as an activity in Europe is not as popular as reading blogs. The highest percentage of users writing blogs is in Spain(41,4%), Turkey(39,2%) and Italy(33,3%). It has not been well adapted in Hungary(7,8%), Czech Republic(18,2%) and Romania(23,2%). Biggest growth is happening in Germany with a jump from 7,5% to 27,8%. In France the situation has stabilized, but in Russia, Spain, UK and Italy percentage is still increasing.

The most active blog writers can be found from France (66% daily or weekly), Spain (55% daily or weekly) and Russia (49% daily or weekly).

Social Networks

The highest percentage of active users participating on Social Networks is in Hungary(79,9%), Poland(76,8%) and Russia(71,7%). Countries that have the lowest adoption rates are France(33,1%), Czech Republic(35,5%) and Italy(38,6%). The biggest growth percentage is in Russia, Germany, Italy, UK and France.

The most active users participating on Social Networks can be found from UK(75% daily or weekly), Spain (64% daily or weekly) and Italy (66% daily or weekly).

Video clips

The most adapted social media tool in all countries. Countries with highest percentage of users watching video clips are Turkey(93,4%), Romania(92,5%), Poland(90,5%), Spain(86,6%) and Hungary(86,6%). Countries with lowest ranking are France(63,4%) and Russia(67,9%). Usage is strongly increasing in all countries.

The most active users/country are from Italy (73% daily or weekly), Spain (76% daily or weekly) and France (69% daily or weekly)

Pod casts

What comes to Podcasts, there is a great difference between countries. As a media it is used in Romania(64,4%) and Russia(57,9%) as well as in Spain(51%) and Turkey(50,8%). It does not interest much in Italy(26,6%), Netherlands(26,3%) and Hungary(25,1%). The percentage is increasing especially in Russia.

Most active users can be found from Italy (72% daily or weekly), Russia (53% daily or weekly)and Spain (65% daily or weekly).

RSS

Subscribing to RSS is especially popular in Russia(56,6%) and Poland(47,7%) compared with other countries. It is also used in Spain(33,6%) and Turkey(32%). It is not very used in Hungary(14,7%), Czech Republic(15%) and Netherlands(14,7%).

Most active users are in Italy (69% daily or weekly), France (60% daily or weekly) and Russia (51% daily or weekly)

Go global, but in Europe act local.

Source: http://www.universalmccann.com/global/knowledge#/proprietary_studies