Are Canadians still addicted to flyers?

Myth: Most Canadians are still using traditional tools (flyers, coupons, lists) to pre-plan their grocery shop.

Actually, many marketers may be surprised to learn that over 75% of shoppers use digital and social media tools during the planning phase of grocery shopping.

Top three stops en route to the grocery store:

• Retailer website for deals (75%)
• Search engine for recipes, product information, coupons & offers (68%)
• Retailer emails (67%)

And social media plays a role too – blogs (24%) and Pinterest (18%) are the most used social platforms when it comes to planning a grocery shop.

While Canadian grocery shoppers are definitely leveraging digital pre-shop, they’re not as likely as their US counterparts to use digital tools while in store. For US consumers, the top three digital activities while shopping included:

• Using a mobile shopping list (34%)
• Using social media to find information (31%)
• Using electronic coupons (28%)

So what?
The takeaway for shopper marketing teams is they need to catch up to shopper behaviour. Given the heavier focus on pre-shop digital behaviours, brands should deliver real-time, location-based content to their shoppers to drive in-store purchase.

Given shoppers’ preference for leveraging retailer-specific digital touch points, brands and retailers have to be able to co-create digital solutions to reach shoppers.

We expect to see an upswing in the usage of in-store digital over the next year, just like we’ve witnessed in the US. The accessibility to more shopping/saving related apps for consumers, beacon/NFC technology in-store and brand-driven digital initiatives will be key factors in driving shoppers to reach for their mobile phones in store.

Shopper marketers should begin to consider the role of digital in-store for their brand, but a larger emphasis should still be placed on the pre-shop/post-shop experience.

Kathryn Easter is senior director of Insights, Influence & Impact at Acosta Mosaic Group Digital

This article first appeared on MarketingMag.ca