Challenge areas of top 3 best Portuguese online supermarkets
This article shares an overview of the current state of the e-grocery features benchmark based on the research results — Best Portugues online supermarkets 2022 rating. To to have a consultation and buy the full version, please contact us.
As was discovered by the research results, Continente, El Corte Inglés and Auchan are the current leaders of the Portuguese e-grocery market in terms of functionality. It’s interesting to notice that leaders are very close to each other. El Corte Inglés and Auchan are only a few points away from Continente Online, and even more — in some areas of the e-grocery shopping process, they have more features for the digital experience of their customers.
As presented at the table above, e-grocery retailers have their own areas of success —
- Continente Online has leadership in the following 4 digital features groups — Information for the customers, Registration, Cart and Notifications,
- El Corte Inglés Supermercado has more features in Catalog, Product page and Order placement features groups,
- Auchan has the same number of features in the Notifications group as Continente and is leading in the Personal area feature group of features.
Areas of challenge
When it comes to the areas and directions for the improvements of grocery online stores if we see the same situation? What parts of online supermarkets demand more attention right away and what features are customers currently missing from the e-grocery leaders’ online supermarkets?
As visualised in the table above, e-grocery retailers have the same areas with a lack of features — Product page, Notifications and Information for the customers.
Let’s see the current state in more detail way.
Product page features lack
As it is obvious from research results, the Product page is the principal common “weak” place in online supermarkets’ functionality.
El Corte Ingsés has the maximum number of features from all the retailers — 34 from a total of 148 features in the Product page group in the checklist, which is only 23% of the features done.
Auchan has 29 features, which is 20% of the total features.
Continente has 25 features delivered, which is 17% only.
So all the leaders have a low level of Product page functionality: 114, 119 and 123 features lacking in the online supermarkets accordingly.
Notifications features lack
The Notifications group is the second group of features with fewer features in online supermarkets.
All of the leaders have the following features “email confirmation of the order”, “email contains the major details of the order” and “email notification in case of canceling the order”.
Continente and Auchan also have features presented as “email with the proposal to make a new order” and “email with advantages of buying food online”.
Continente and Auchan have 5 features, 29% of the total features list, which consists of 17 features. El Corte Ingsés delivered only 3 features, which is 18%.
Information for the customer features lack
El Corte Inglés and Auchan have few features in the “Information for the customers” feature group comprising 117 features.
This functionality is presented only by 37 features in El Corte Inglés, and 25 in Auchan, 32% and 21% of the total feature list.
Resume
- Regarding the Product page, the challenge for the e-grocery retailers will be to fulfill the page with product information as much as possible, including, but not limited by
- advanced description and product details,
- media materials — photos and video about the product, 3D photos; usage the rich content that became essential for e-commerce,
- features that help customers choose the right product, be sure about the choice, not regret the purchase, and continue shopping for groceries online.
E-grocery players need to be sure they help customers discover the products and provide them with the tools and features that customers can use to have confidence in the product choice process.
For example, some features are very requirable by customers to be able to get the confidence that they are buying the right product —
No retailer from the leaders' list has the possibility for the customers to compare the products.
Compare products feature, which was mentioned in the demo report of the research, is only presented by 1 out of 10 online supermarkets. SPAR has a feature for the customers to compare a few products. Customers can mark products with the checkbox and go to the page with a comparison.
Products’ ratings and other customers’ reviews for the product features — are only presented by El Corte Inglés from the leaders’ list. Also, from the total list of research participants, Mini Preço and SPAR have features to see the rating of the products, see other customers' feedback about the products — and can decide to buy or not.
In the Best Portugues online supermarkets 2022 rating research materials we have 151 features checked in 10 online supermarkets for the Product page.
2. Notifications via push, email and SMS are not in a very active way of usage by the retailers. That’s good on the one hand — to not bother the customers with extra information and not overwhelm them with much news.
Simultaneously, online supermarkets are loosing the opportunity to connect customers with the brand, not using the chance to share the information about promotions and some relevant tips.
So the challenge here will be to find the right balance and provide customers with a good variety of settings that they can manage based on their preferences —
- set up the subscription via email or SMS, or push,
- choose the topics of interest — new products in the online supermarket catalog, promotions, news of the retailer, etc.,
- specify the frequency of getting it.
Also, at the current moment, no e-grocery retailer asks customers to share feedback about their experience during the purchasing process. With this feature, requesting feedback proactively, retailers can get great benefits — hearing what customers think and what they expect to be changed.
In the Best Portugues online supermarkets 2022 rating research materials we have 18 features checked in 10 online supermarkets for the Notifications and 91 for the Personal area, including the settings for the customer to choose the channels for the notifications and communications.
3. Information for the customers is an essential requirement from the customers to have available before they start purchasing, and includes
- Onboarding,
- Contact options,
- Options for support such as chat, links the social network accounts,
- Information about the store, the process of purchasing, the guarantee of quality and conditions during the delivery,
- Payment options,
- Legal terms and documents,
- Recipes of the dishes, recommendations from the chefs and other customers,
- Option to check the availability of day and time slots for the delivery or collection of the order.
In the Best Portugues online supermarkets 2022 rating research materials we have 117 features checked in 10 online supermarkets for the features from the Information for the customers group.
Currently, this functionality is presented only by Continente only at the level of 40% (48 features out of 117); the following 2 rating leaders have fewer features in place — 37 features in El Corte Inglés, and 25 in Auchan, which 32% and 21% of the total feature list.
As it is seen, there is a lack of features that are the basis for online grocery purchasing. Therefore, retailers need to be sure they designed the best experience for the customers so that they can feel comfortable and confident in the digital channel, can obtain all the details about the product, instant help and information as they used to get in the offline supermarket.
The next wave of e-grocery research will show how retailers dealt with challenges — we will see if the leaders stayed the same. Retailers’ teams have time to ideate and implement improvements for the digital customer experience.
Research full report content
The full version of the research materials contains:
- 200 slides with research results and information, and
- the checklist with a 700x10 matrix with a functionality benchmark.
Using the materials of the research report can only be made with the link to the studio’s website.
Note! You can see some differents in the nubmers in the features by the groups, as 151 or 148 features in the Product page — because we studied features regaring the “out of stock product logic”, but didn’t include them to the rating calculation
