Last week, Northfork Co-founder Erik Wallin shared the company's insights into 2022's online grocery retail trends. Now, it's time to look ahead to 2023.

Convenience means more than fast delivery

Rapid delivery services have come to the fore in 2022. Customers increasingly expect their groceries to arrive fast - sometimes in just minutes. Retailers have stepped up, but as we move forward, it's time for the quick commerce offering to mature.

"Many retailers offer rapid delivery," points out Wallin. "Now, those looking to get ahead are focusing on other elements of providing a convenient service. It's about enhancing the experience as a whole."

One key element of this is recipe shopping. Consumers find mealtime inspiration in all sorts of places. As such, retailers who can enable customers to shop from third-party content sites or from television cookery programmes are those who will resonate with their shoppers from a convenience perspective.

Personalisation

Personalisation and convenience go hand-in-hand. Yet Incisiv's Grocery Industry 2021 Digital Maturity Benchmark reports that just 13% of grocery retailers offer dietary profiles. This is another area where retailers who lead the field stand to make big gains. As such, building personalisation into every aspect of the customer journey is likely to be high on leading retailers' agendas as we head towards 2023.

Delivering value

Global political and economic fluctuations are increasing food instability and driving up prices. This shows no sign of slowing during the second half of 2022. As such, there is likely to be plenty of emphasis from retailers on how they convey value to their shoppers. Times are tough. Retailers that can support families to achieve value as they shop look set to do well.

This isn't just about selling food at the lowest possible prices. It's about supporting households to make the most of their income. By implementing meal planning technology, for example, a retailer can help shoppers to split ingredients across multiple recipes. If the shopper has chosen a recipe that uses half a bag of potatoes, meal planning tech could dynamically serve additional recipe suggestions that would use up the rest of the bag.

Delivering value in this way is likely to be a major area of focus as shoppers around the world continue to battle the economic headwinds.