A recent PYMNTS article broke down the role of digital payments in our modern grocery shopping experience. In a September 2022 survey, 24% of respondents said they used digital wallets to pay for recent grocery purchases.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the increase in digital payments has permeated most industries, and online grocery shopping and digital wallet use continue to climb. In fact, digital wallet use at grocery stores was higher than overall retail digital wallet use. This is a great opportunity for this part of the food industry, which now seems to be catching up to the restaurant industry’s digital payments boom.
Let’s take a look at how digital payments and online grocery shopping are changing the way consumers shop and pay for their groceries.
Capitalizing on Omnichannel Buying Trends
Curbside grocery pickup, online ordering and delivery options, mobile app purchases – omnichannel buying trends have hit every major industry, and grocery stores are no different. Online grocery shopping isn’t just used for meal prepping or buying non-regional foods anymore.
Grocery customers are enjoying the added touchpoints in their grocery experience because they can tailor it to their lifestyle and preferences. For example, people who are not highly mobile (those with disabilities or little to no access to a car or public transportation) can now get groceries just as easily as someone who lives a few blocks from their favorite grocer or supermarket.
Through QR code-enabled payments and digital rewards programs, customers can create and add value to their grocery shopping experience on their own. Of course, businesses have to get on board with implementing these digital services, but it’s hard to deny that omnichannel shopping is gaining popularity and trust from customers around the country.
Combining these digital and physical experiences means your routine grocery run can include options for paying bills, receiving pharmacy prescriptions quickly and easily, and wo much more.
And if business owners can track these purchases, they can connect their customers with events and other products that fit their lifestyles. Supermarket News shared a great example whereby a regular shopper who enjoys purchasing red wine and hard cheese can get connected to a wine and cheese pairing class in a local market or winery that the grocery has partnered with. These connections create impactful customer experiences.
Increased Efficiency
When groceries offer a variety of payment options like those found in the ReliaFund all-in-one payment processing platform, they can also increase cost-effectiveness and operational efficiencies.
By building digital payments and other options into the omnichannel and online grocery shopping experience, it can reduce credit card transaction fees as you encourage mobile wallet and ACH payments. And if you partner with integrated third-party services, you can cut down the fees and operations associated with having in-house staff reconcile transactions and create reports.
Self-checkouts and payment integration can mean faster service for those who prefer to choose their groceries themselves, and it offers more options for people looking for alternative or flexible shopping experiences.
Minimize Checkout Wait Times
Technology is a huge driver in the effort to minimize checkout wait times, especially at grocery stores and supermarkets. Self-checkout lanes and even Amazon’s Just Walk Out concept mean less time waiting for a staff member to ring up your purchases.
This decreases overhead and wage expenses for grocers and it puts the power and efficiency into the hands of customers. When there are more options for payment, those customers are often delighted to find that they have a wealth of payment options available to them. This decreases friction and wait times because people don’t have to dig through coin purses or fill out checks and offer IDs if they’d rather simply tap their phone to the kiosk or log into their digital wallet app.
Online grocery shopping and home delivery options also keep wait times down and increase the convenience factor for shoppers. They no longer have to be physically present for the orders to be delivered. As technology speeds up other areas of life, many people express the desire to be more savvy and efficient consumers, and online shopping and digital payment processing are great ways to keep things moving with little to no friction in shopping and transaction experiences.
Payment Processing Just Got Easier
We are in a digital payments boom, and that means your business likely is selling its products and services in a variety of physical and digital spaces to customers with a variety of preferred payment methods.
Whether your customers are doing their online grocery shopping with you, or they just want to use PayPal or Venmo in your store, integrated payment solutions are a must.
That’s why ReliaFund built an all-in-one payment processing platform. Our full range of services offers comprehensive payment options you can store in one place, which also makes it easy for you to run high-quality reports and reconciliation to determine payment trends within your own operations.