5 Effective Strategies for FMCG Retailers to Grow Revenue

One could say that the rapid digital adoption by traditional FMCG brands was not merely driven by the pandemic. While it did play a significant role in the shift, what also drove these brands to digitise their operations was the changing consumer preferences – towards healthier food alternatives, easier purchase and transaction options, cheaper availability of products online, and of course, the mushrooming of newer ecommerce FMCG brands that brought competition into this space. 

Why Should FMCGs Go Online? 

Having an ecommerce presence offers a number of advantages for FMCG retailers. It enables them to; 

• Offer a wider range of products on their platform 
• Keep the store open 24/7 
• Gain better insights into customer browsing and shopping habits, which they can in turn share with manufacturers and suppliers and help optimised inventory management. 
• They can use these insights to build more personalised relationships with their customers as well  
• Make their products accessible to wider geographies 
• Save on overhead costs involved in running and maintaining multiple physical stores 
• Sell their products at a lower price point 
• Scale their brand and product easily 

A study by Neilsen states that ecommerce adoption by brands has grown 50% since the pandemic started, and Asia Pacific has been leading the market in terms of revenue from ecommerce sales.  

In 2021 ecommerce contributed to 25% of retail growth in Asia Pac, closely followed by Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East and Africa.  

In 2022, Asia Pacific continued to grow with nearly 20% of FMCG sales being generated from ecommerce channels. In fact, going forward, experts predict that the FMCG market is likely to grow by USD 310.5 billion by 2026 on the back of growing revenues through online sales. 

5 Strategies FMCGs Can Adopt To Drive Online Revenues 

One of the first things FMCG retailers need to do is keep with the times. Going digital is not just about making your products available on a website. It’s about being present where your customers are. In other words, FMCG brands need to have an omni-channel presence.  

For example, today, customers can choose to order through a delivery partner, place an online on your website, or take a click and collect option, where they order online and collect at your nearest store or outlet. Is your brand enabling your customers through all these channels? It’s one of the key things you need to ask yourselves as you plan your digital strategy.

A Merit expert says, “With inflation on the anvil (resulting in increased cost of products) and consumers becoming more wary of spending, it’s all the more imperative for retailers to pull out all stops to keep the relationship going with their customers, and work harder to sustain and at times grow their revenues.”

Thankfully, for marketers, there’s a new kid on the block – commerce media.

Traditionally, marketers and advertisers had vague insight into how many impressions were leading to sales. It was often a combination of past insights, current data and a handful of assumptions. With commerce media, publishers’ content and commerce opportunities are linked in a way that marketers can directly identify how many impressions lead to conversions.

1. The Benefits of Retail Media Networks

One aspect of commerce media is retail media networks (RMN). Simply put, RMN is a media network owned by retailers, who give ad space to marketers to showcase their products. For example, let’s say you go to Amazon and search for laptops, and you see a sponsored ad by Logitech, advertising its wireless mouse.

Now, through RMN, Logitech has bought an ad space on the Amazon website, to display its ad when consumers search for related products. According to MnKinsey, ad spending through RMN is likely to grow from approx.USD 45 billion to over USD 100 billion by 2026.

2. Leveraging Your First-Party Data

A third strategy that brands can adopt is leveraging first-party data and using insights from these data points to deliver more personalised experiences to consumers.

In the past year, first-party data has garnered a lot of attention because of the elimination of third-party cookies. We’ve written an extensive blog on how brands can use first-party and second-party data to improve marketing ROI. The few key pointers marketers need to consider when using first-party data is to ensure that the data is relevant and current, and to ensure that they centralise their data to gather deeper insights into their consumers.

3. Digital Upskilling for Retail

Taking a data-driven approach to marketing and revenue generation means that retailers need to develop the capabilities to understand and navigate through digital technologies that can help them achieve their desired objectives.

While hiring a third-party agency to do the data crunching and marketing can come with its due advantages, it’s always wise to develop in parallel digital capabilities within the organisation, through regular upskilling and L&D initiatives.

4. Sharing Insights with your Suppliers and Distributors

Use these data and insights to develop better and more efficient relationships with your suppliers and distributors. Especially if you’re adopting an omnichannel approach, it becomes all the more important to know which of your products are performing well, what is the likely demand for it (seasonally, occasionally etc.), and how much of these products you need to keep stock of. In fact, showcasing these insights to your suppliers can also help them get a more transparent understanding of how their products are performing.

5. Constantly Identify Areas for Improvement

Lastly, always identify areas of improvement. Should you sell through a marketplace or have your own website? If you have your own website, how is each page performing? What are new technologies emerging to get one step closer to your consumer without invading their privacy?

The deal is, once businesses enter the digital platform, it’s about constantly being one step ahead in the game, in identifying what they can do better to stay relevant, to grow more.

Merit’s Expertise in e-Commerce Data and Intelligence 

Our state-of-the-art eCommerce data harvesting engine collects raw data and provides actionable insights 

• Three to four times faster than standard scrapers 
• At lower cost 
• With Increased accuracy (up to 30% compared to standard scrapers) 

Our powerful, new scraper engine can gather massive data sets from multiple sites and geographies in real-time so you can stay informed on customer behaviours and market trends. 

Merit’s eCommerce data engine provides a high degree of confidence in insights generated from analytics – thanks to confidence in the data quality and access to enriched data. 

To know more, visit: https://www.meritdata-tech.com/service/data/retail-data/