P2PI LIVE Keynote Dives into Kroger E-Commerce

When he took the stage Tuesday morning to kick off P2PI LIVE, Bill Bennett couldn’t be coerced into discussing the mega-merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons announced last week. Instead, the Kroger vice president of e-commerce stuck to the plan to talk about the retailer’s customer experience from an e-commerce perspective.

“I've always enjoyed understanding how consumers make decisions and then building strategies around how to grow a brand or a business around those trends,” said Bennett, who spent time at SC Johnson, General Mills and Walmart before joining Kroger in 2020. “So that's really kind of where I grew my foundation with my business experience.

“In my current job, my set of responsibilities includes any transaction that's placed online, so we really think about the end-to-end journey of the customer – bringing all of those pieces together.”

Asked about how shopper behavior is evolving, Bennett said, “Obviously, inflation is a huge driver for everybody. In our primary research, we're hearing that 90% of customers are making changes based on what they're seeing on the shelf with those price changes. Personal finance is increasingly a concern for customers of 46% of customers.”

Kroger e-commerce strategy has been impacted by the rise of the hybrid shopper. “Historically, we would have thought about the online customer uniquely from the in-store customer.” Bennett said. “Increasingly, we see that it's really all one customer base. Whether customers are planning an in-store trip using all of our digital capabilities, or if they are looking to purely place an e-commerce transaction, all those pieces need to come together in a really seamless way.”

And, what comprises a seamless customer experience? “Everybody sort of looks at this a bit differently,” Bennett said. “When we think about seamless, we really try to think about every single customer need and friction point. … Now you have so much more control over that full customer journey, and realizing that the website isn't just about getting to an e-commerce transaction. It's really about helping customers find your brand, learn about your brand.”

Bennett then discussed Kroger’s relationship with grocery fulfillment technology company Ocado and the retailers’ automated fulfillment centers. “All of this is driven by artificial intelligence — every single customer order, the pecking order of the product is optimized to make sure that bread isn't on the bottom,” he said. “We make sure that we fill every single bag to capacity so that we minimize the amount of plastic we're using and the amount of space that we're using the trucks. We make sure that you know every single product gets inspected several times along that journey to make sure quality is at the right point.

“It's very cool to see the robots buzzing around and everything, but it is really all built around optimizing and improving that end result for the customer.”

Bennett then touched on the best way for CPG brands to engage with Kroger with regard to e-commerce. “First, we have a great digital merchandise team that is really a specialist in thinking about how your merchandising strategies coming to life online. … Making sure there's a holistic strategy there and partnering with your Kroger Precision Marketing point [person] is really important,” he said. “I would say our best CPG partners … they don't build a brick-and-mortar plan and then sort of bolt on an online support system. It's like, how do we touch the customer across all of these different channels and make sure that we are helping them understand the promotion we're running and making sure it's executable on both channels.”

Bennett has clear thoughts on the relationship between brick-and-mortar and digital/e-commerce. “Remember what I said about how often the customer journey starts online even if they're going to place an in-store transaction. We see 90% of searches on online are for unbranded search terms. So, a huge opportunity whether the customer is building lists for in-store or intending to place online transaction — a huge opportunity to influence and help customers get to know your brand.”

Bennett closed by offering a piece of advice to brands: “Very simply, it's a ‘know your customers.’ There's no better way to understand your customers than with a retailer who has 98% penetration of a loyalty card with its transactions. Every single transaction with Kroger documents customer behavior in a way that we can learn something.”