An Introduction into Online Grocery Retailers
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| (Thrive Market - Homepage) |
In the space of online grocery shopping, competition is fierce. Not only do online retailers have to compete with traditional brick and mortar stores like Walmart offering pick up service, but also big retailers like Amazon getting into the online grocery market (Perez, 2019). There is no doubt that ordering groceries online saves time and along with the convenience of having groceries delivered, people are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience: “Digital grocery sales in US are estimated to reach $59.5 billion by 2023 from $23.9 billion in 2018” (Ross, n.d.). That’s a huge amount of growth!
Is it even possible for small online grocery retailers to compete in this space? If so, how do smaller online grocery retailers stand out from the big megastores? After all, apples are apples no matter where you get them.
Hypothesis: Using web analytics to find, target, and determine market needs, small online grocery retailers can carve out a niche by offering products and services that larger stores cannot. Through product personalization and curation, small online grocery retailers can fulfill the needs of people who expect more than just groceries delivered.
Background – Thrive Market
Thrive Market launched in 2014 as a startup and has been making waves as an online direct-to-consumer retailer that “hits a sweet spot of quality and value for many consumers” (Wells, 2017). Unlike big online grocery retailers, Thrive Market is membership-based and sources products that are “nontoxic, eco-friendly, affordable, and effective” (Thrive Market, n.d. -a). Members pay a yearly fee of $60 and have access to a variety of grocery, beauty, and home products. In addition, to autoshipping products, Thrive Market also offers free shipping on orders over $49.
Why would anyone pay $60 to become a member of a grocery store? Much like wholesale stores like Costco, Thrive Market offers its curated products at a lower cost than traditional organic retailers like Whole Foods.
“We focus on driving an incredibly high-quality experience for our members. We see organic and referral activity that’s unusual to this industry, and that’s because members love what they get from us. They save a lot of time and money, but they also appreciate things like the fact that we use 100% post-consumer recycling on our packaging, and that we’re about to go zero waste on our distribution centers” – Gunnar Lovelace, Thrive Market Co-CEO (Wells, 2017).
The success of an online retailer like Thrive Market cannot rely solely on offering a variety of products at a low price. The company needed to tap into Web analytics in order to gain insights into their consumers, their consumer’s values, and their needs. Ultimately, by answering the question of how and what Thrive Market products and experiences can meet and exceed consumer expectations will the company grow.
Web Analytics As a Method for Providing Clues About What I Want to Eat?
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| (Thrive Market - What's Trending) |
Thrive Market uses Amazon Web Services as its platform to sell their products and collect consumer data. Using Amazon products and analytics solutions, Thrive Market has aggregated its customer data to provide a full view of the consumer experience, ultimately solving business problems (AWS, n.d.). We know that every click on Thrive Market’s pages are tracked. As consumers are researching products, adding them to carts, and ultimately moving through the check-out process, data is being collected. Thrive Market’s Director of Marketing Analytics, Jack Kuo said that most enjoyable part of his job is “I think it’s getting to know our members through looking at patterns of actions, and being able to paint a picture of people that I’ve never met through the way that they interact with us” (Gulotta, 2019).
Thrive Market uses Web Analytics to determine what products are popular. It also uses past purchase data to recommend products to its members. This is evident on Thrive Market’s Homepage right after sign in where the company shows “What’s Trending,” “Best Sellers,” “Recently Purchased Items,” “Recommended for You,” and “Top-rated Products” (Thrive Market, n.d.-b). All of these categories help to drive existing members to explore new items and hopefully make additional purchases.
Another interesting feature is “Shop by Diet.” Here is where Web analytics merges with the curation of products. For example, consumers who want only vegan products can simply click on a link and all the vegan products appear sorted. Thrive Market finds its niche by not only catering to those who want to save money on healthy products, but to though who are particular about what they eat either because of health or social reasons. Thrive Market has a blog and provides a lot more product information on each of its product pages. These techniques help position Thrive Market as an industry-expert: “It’s a way we can differentiate from large institutional players that don’t have trust and credibility in those discussions. And we know it’s been very effective in bringing people into our ecosystem and be a centerpiece of our strategy going forward” – Thrive Market, Co-CEO Gunnar Lovelace (Wells, 2017).
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| (Thrive Market - Shop by Diet) |
In addition to recommending products on-site, Thrive Market also uses retargeting techniques that target members who leave items in their shopping cart through Instagram and Facebook ads. Web analytics can also be used to create lookalike audiences in order to gain new members. Analytics tells us how current users behave, what their interests are, where they are and all this data can be used to find similar people who may also be interested. Thrive Market’s Marketing Analyst, Davis Brown once described his job as, “Through social media channels or other paid media, our team can truly impact discovery of our brand and make healthy living easier for people across the country as they try out Thrive Market for the first time (Gulotta, 2018).
Thriving for the Best SEO
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| (The Hoth, n.d.) |
With all the data collection available how does Thrive Market’s SEO activities compare to its competitors? Using The Hoth’s Google SEO Ranking Checker, many branded keywords and specific products allow Thrive Market to rank highly. Searches for “Vegan Market” also ranks Thrive Market as number one. In side-by-side SEO comparison (n.d.), between ThriveMarket.com and Vitacost.com, another online organic food retailer, Thrive Market’s SEO blows its competition away by simply having information such as Meta Description, Meta Keywords, and Headings.
Another method to collect data that Thrive Market uses is that in order to search products, whether you are a member or not, you must sign in by providing an email address. Thrive Market offers single sign-in with Facebook, which I’m sure is a way to obtain more user data. Once users sign in, there are many on-page internal links to products and recommendation lists. The shopping cart appears in the global navigation and in the sticky footer. This allows for easy conversion when a consumer is ready to check out. There is a search bar that offers keyword suggestions also in the global navigation. Pages are also optimized to be mobile-friendly.
Nobody is Perfect – Recommendations for Improvement
While I understand the marketing benefits of associating users with sessions, I wish that Thrive Market didn’t force a sign-in to explore products. Sometimes people wish to browse high-fiber gummy bears while remaining anonymous. Anonymous data can also be useful in understanding why users do not convert. For example, if anonymous users are exiting at the membership information page, something about the page could be improved. With the addition of heat mapping, actual behavior can be further analyzed.
Thrive Market’s keyword Meta Title is “Organic, Healthy Food Delivery Online.” From our exploration, we know that Thrive Market sells products beyond organic and healthy food. Updating the Meta description to include all the other categories can help Thrive Market rank higher on searches like Gluten-Free groceries.
Upon sign-in, the only way to find Thrive Market’s blog is to click the link in the footer. Perhaps featuring the blog more prominently on the homepage along with an image and a snippet can drive engagement and help spread Thrive Market’s social advocacy goals.
Each product page includes member reviews along with a star rating. While real person reviews hold a lot of weight, expert reviews either in the form of video or blog entries could also be helpful to drive conversion.
Thrive Market was born online and literally thrives online. Its use of Web analytics was key to the growth and continued success of its business model.
References
AWS. (n.d.). Thrive Market Case Study. Retrieved from https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/thrive-market/
Internet Marketing Ninjas. (n.d.). Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool. Retrieved from http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/seo-compare/
Gulotta, N. (2019, May 24). Startup Stories: Q&A With Thrive Market Director of Marketing Analytics Jack Kuo. Thrive Market. Retrieved from https://thrivemarket.com/blog/startup-stories-qa-with-thrive-market-director-of-marketing-analytics-jack-kuo
Gulotta, N. (2018, September 6). Startup Stories: Q&A With Thrive Market Marketing Analyst Davis Brown. Thrive Market. Retrieved from https://thrivemarket.com/blog/startup-stories-qa-with-thrive-market-marketing-analyst-davis-brown
Perez, S. (2019, August 13). Walmart tops US online grocery market, with 62% more customers than next nearest rival. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/13/walmart-tops-u-s-online-grocery-market-with-62-more-customers-than-next-nearest-rival/
Ross, L. (n.d.). US Online Grocery Shopping – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]. Invesp. Retrieved from https://www.invespcro.com/blog/us-online-grocery-shopping/
The Hoth (n.d.) Google SEO Ranking Checker. Retrieved from https://www.thehoth.com/search-engine-rankings/
Thrive Market. (n.d.-a). About Us. Retrieved from https://thrivemarket.com/about-us
Thrive Market. (n.d.-b). Homepage. Retrieved from https://thrivemarket.com/myaisle/
Wells, J. (2017, August 16). Q&A: How Thrive Market became the country's hottest online natural and organic market. Grocery Dive. Retrieved from https://www.grocerydive.com/news/grocery--qa-how-thrive-market-became-the-countrys-hottest-online-natural-and-organic/534795/
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