MARKET RESEARCH
Doing business online – the retailers’ big shift Have your online sales grown since March 2020? 60
How has your online presence changed?* A great deal
54%
No change
50 40
31.5%
30 20 10 0
10% 4.5%
A moderate amount
Somewhat No change
Significant Significant No online offering decline increase
A little
What improvements did you make?*
13%
of businesses launched new websites, expanded their online retail offer or redesigned
21%
* 145 respondents deemed this question not applicable
39%
paid for some form of advertising or promotion on social media
made improvements to their social media strategy. Instagram and Facebook are the most frequently mentioned sites.
How much product sourcing do you do online?*
12
respondents hired (or paid for a professional consultant) to handle social media, marketing or online sales
Captured comments
All
Some
None
“We have recruited internally for someone to manage our socials, changed our style of imagery (using lifestyle shots more, rather than product shots), and have been working closer with suppliers to do joint sharing on socials.” “While we were closed we tried to engage our customers with recipe videos and included a competition where customers posted their dishes.” “We were lucky and had a celebrity who visited a few times and it was posted in the daily papers. As a result we had 520,000 hits on our website. We also used Google Ad Words at the beginning of the pandemic to advertise our delivery service.”
A little A lot
8%
staged online events
Behind the data After years of debate in the industry about whether it could work as a sales channel for food & drink, online finally came of age in 2020. Admittedly, the arrival of COVID-19 was the catalyst that internet food retailing needed to really get going, but it’s a method of buying that many consumers have now embraced. While many retailers (as borne out here) and producers have found a new route to market, the internet has also proven itself to be a vital marketing tool for retailers across the UK. The data here certainly backs that up, with a wealth of different strategies mentioned – from simply posting more on Instagram and putting on online tastings through to investing in social media advertising and hiring professionals to improve digital marketing.
*102 respondents deemed this question not applicable. Total respondents 691.
Vol.22 Issue 5 | June 2021
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