It’s no exaggeration to say that customer shopping habits are changing faster than ever before. 

Deliveroo rider and Sainsbury's Groceries Online driver set off

Nothing has tested the retail industry’s ability to adapt and evolve to customer needs more than the last 16 months. In particular, under intense pressure, the grocery industry has really stepped up to respond to the massive surge in demand for home delivery slots. Across the board grocers grew capacity to serve as many shoppers as possible this way – we more than doubled ours at Sainsbury’s which helped our Groceries Online business expand from 8% of grocery sales in March 2020 to 17% just a year later.

As governments across the UK slowly ease lockdown restrictions, we know we’ll see a steady stream of customers returning to shopping in stores, but we don’t think the online trend will reverse. The pandemic introduced many more people to the convenience of online grocery shopping for the first time and having tried it, used it and got used to it, many won’t be looking to go back. 

Online shopping in 2021

Just as we have different store formats to fit different shopping missions, online isn’t just about the big weekly shop. While some customers do want to plan their meals for the week, for others, it makes more sense to go grocery shopping little and often, or last-minute. People working from home instead of the office have been getting groceries delivered during the day, and with hybrid working set to stay, it’s a natural next step for many shoppers who live increasingly busy lives. When they have choice, customers can shop very differently from one day to the next, depending on what they’re after. 

In a hybrid world, online missions must mirror the variety that customers are having to manage in their lives. Customers need a choice of ways to shop, both physically and digitally, depending on their needs, and innovation is the key to meeting them. 

Sainsburys Chop Chop delivery riders

Sainsburys Chop Chop delivery riders

Take super-fast grocery deliveries. Chop Chop, our 60-minute grocery delivery service, started out as a way for customers to do emergency top-up shops and for London office workers to grab a last-minute lunch. Now, combined with our Deliveroo and Uber Eats partnerships, we offer super-fast grocery deliveries from over 200 stores and almost 40 cities and towns and it’s ‘just’ another way for customers to get groceries delivered to their door. We’re seeing customers completing a whole range of missions across these platforms, and even using them to do that weekly shop.

Some of our top-performing stores for super-fast deliveries are the ones based right by university student accommodation – ‘on demand’ shopping is the most compatible with their lifestyle. And, by partnering with apps that shoppers are already using, we can launch in new locations where we know people want to shop this way and crucially, just like the offer itself, we can be super-fast to launch.

What will be the ‘new normal’?

The flexibility of our online operations has somewhat unlocked this level of innovation. Our in-store pick model has proved really resilient and has meant we can keep it quick and we can keep it fresh, allowing us to grow capacity without huge investments in infrastructure.

We are continuing to expand our online departments across 20 stores in and around the capital by March 2022, increasing our capacity even further. But it’s just as important to deliver innovation in stores, as well as online. Improvements in our scan-whilst-you-shop app, Smartshop, which now includes Nectar offers within it, led to one in four customers shopping this way through the pandemic as people prioritised safety and speed. We will constantly iterate across our digital channels to deliver for customers however they want to shop. 

Just like our customers, we’re looking forward to things feeling more normal. But increasingly, what was normal pre-pandemic might not be in the future. While so much is still uncertain, retailers need to have a range of channels at the ready that can be flexed and adapted as quicky as customer needs can change. Our job is to interrogate the data, listen really carefully to what customers are telling us, and do everything we can to bring them a range of ways to shop for what they want.