Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Grocery stores move beyond the flyers in the newspapers.



Many people slip some flyers in with the newspapers to convey their business communication. In a bid to find ways to advertise without putting out a lot of cash people modify simple yet inexpensive ways to them make their own. Newspaper flyers have been a long trusted method to reach out to the desire TG with a localized approach. Many believe that certainly there are changes ahead, but reports show that traditional media still tops.

The ongoing shift in consumer media usage habits from traditional to digital media will be pushing the grocery industry in a distinctly social direction, according to research from media and marketing services firm Valassis.

Three-quarters of grocery retail executives surveyed in the US in March said they would use print media this year for marketing purposes, but just 17% expected to be doing so five years from now. Social media, by contrast, was expected to go from just 12% usage in 2012 to 65% usage in the next five years.
Social media was not expected to be the only beneficiary of declining interest by consumers in print media. The grocery retail executives said they would be changing their promotional strategies to account for lower newspaper circulation by increasing investments online in general (22%) as well as in shared or merged mail (19%) and solo or direct mail (14%).

Respondents saw the role of online advertising differently from that of broadcasts or printed circulars. Nearly half of respondents agreed that broadcast was best used for acquisition, while about the same number said circulars were good for increasing traffic and sales. But grocery executives were split on the benefits of internet advertising, with nearly equal numbers naming acquisition, retention and increased traffic as its primary role in the marketing mix.

For now, though, old media are the old standbys for consumers as well as retailers when it comes to grocery purchase decisions. Parents surveyed by agency Cone Communications in May said that in-store promotions were the top marketing channel they used to gather information on their grocery purchases (69% among moms and 57% among dads). Just 12% of mothers and 18% of fathers used online media for this purpose, and 8% and 11%, respectively, used social media.

Now if we look at the Social Media usage in the Arab region, fresh data published in The Dubai School of Government’s annual Arab Social Media Report highlights Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as the region’s key social media platforms.

In terms of penetration, LinkedIn outperforms Twitter across many countries – most significantly, in the UAE where the business-focused network reaches more than 12% of the population (compared to around 3% for Twitter).

Facebook is the leading social network across the region. Again, the UAE sees impressive penetration, with the service reaching more than 40% of the population.

Here are few online stores that operate to provide wide varieties of grocery products online:

1. Ethnic Grocer.com : Not only do they sell products from the Middle East, they sell items from all over the world. Their prices are great and they offer fair shipping.

2. Kalamala.com : Kalamala.com offers a large variety of Middle Eastern products and even sells wholesale if you need the service. The site can be viewed in both English and Arabic and boasts hard to find fruits and other imported products.

3. Cedar Sky : Cedar Sky offers traditional Middle Eastern food and gifts, more specifically Lebanese products.

All of these above and more and more grocery stores are making their presence felt on Facebook and other leading social media websites. This process has indeed made easier for people to identify the best grocery store that serves what they want and getting the grocery at their door step had never been this easy.
The rise in social media usage in the region unquestionably gives retailers and shopkeepers a great opportunity to target the untapped people.

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