The problem with digital is that it feels like it’s moving really, really fast, when most of the time it isn’t. Except when it does.

And the trick is to spot the difference.

In 2002, I was editor of Mixmag. The first issue of “the world’s biggest dance music and club culture magazine” was in 1983. Now, the publishers have out the print edition on pause, due to COVID-related sales challenges.

Mixmag’s former sister title Q, is printing its last issue. The first issue was in 1986.

What surprises me is how long these magazines have lasted. 34 years for Q and 37 for Mixmag is impressive. Especially when in 1999 (I think), the publisher announced a huge spend to bring magazines into the digital age, with websites, offering content, ticket sales and (super modern!) mobile ringtones!

With the rise of digital-everything, print should have been dead about 10 years ago.

The key takeaway is that trends take longer than you think.

I worked on Peroni’s Ocado mini-store in 2013, and CPGs are still figuring out how to get visibility on supermarket websites. That’s an age in hyperspeed digital, if we believe the hype.

iPhones are the poster child for fast adoption rates, but look at the curve over time and it is less hockey-stick-shaped than you might expect.

Very few things are big without being small first.

Except when they are not.

Sometimes there’s a tipping point and sometimes there’s a Black Swan. And when that happens you need to react – fast. For grocery e-commerce, that time is now.

Facebook’s growth is a straight line with a sharp incline. No hockey stick. But runaway growth, year after year. Smartphones made much of that possible. The Facebook app on the iPhone and Android made everything else just work.

The great Netflix success story has a nice upward curve for sure, driven by readily available broadband speeds. But the more interesting story is the further 10 years from Blockbuster’s peak sales to its demise. Sometimes digital trends are slow when you zoom out to look at total market share, even when the growth of the digital new kid on the block is growing up fast.

We have trended growth, we have tipping points, then we have Black Swans. Black Swans are unpredictable high-impact, large-scale events that happen rarely – and change everything.

COVID-19 is grocery e-commerce’s Black Swan.

This is what grocery e-commerce was meant to do – a gently accelerating curve.

Then, as we all know, in March and April, it did this:

And then the big question is – what happens next? No one has a predictable graph for that, but maybe it’s this:

That’s what Black Swans do – they unpredictably change things. It’s the ‘Digital Disruption’ that we digital folk talk about all the time, without admitting that this ‘disruption’ is more of a tortoise disruption rather than a hare disruption. (I’m guilt of disruption fever, I even wrote the book on it here)

But this Black Swan thing is the real deal.

Grocery e-commerce – our time is now.

And the question is: What are we going to do about it?

This COVID Black Swan is driving a huge amount of first-time grocery e-commerce shoppers and it’s entrenching behaviours.

Grocery e-commerce – now it’s time to fix CX.

You managed the channel surge and adoption. You scaled the infrastructure.

But the online customer experience has not improved. With so many more people joining the channel, there’s a chance to lock in loyalty with an even easier and better service.

Time to check:

– Is my onboarding process simple and clear?

– Is the taxonomy intuitive?

– Does search work really well?

– Are allergy, diet and health attributes assigned to the catalogue?

– Do those attributes work seamlessly in search and filters?

– Do I have decent data coverage for consistent PDP content?

– Are my product titles and hero images clear and aid quick purchase?

– Are substitutions based on great data to reduce the risk of a poor consumer CX?

And once all that is done, how about we look at health?

• Is it easy for shoppers to find healthy (affordable) foods?
• Are we helping shoppers achieve their health goals?
• Do retail dieticians have the right digital tools to help them do their jobs?

And then, how about we fix personalisation.

While everything else digital runs on gargantuan mystery algorithms – Google Search, Netflix recommendations, Facebook newsfeed – online grocery search results are comparatively stone age with search results ordered by search query match, and most commonly purchased goods.

How about we serve the right product results to the right person at the right time, based on their dietary needs, past purchase history and what other people who eat similarly also buy? And while we’re at it, how about we do the same for Loyalty App offers and CRM emails, so vegetarians aren’t presented with turkey for Thanksgiving, and flexitarians are given a choice.

It’s time for grocery e-commerce to step up and find it’s purpose.

Just like most things digital, e-commerce has taken its time. UK’s Ocado is 20 years old. US’s Peapod is 31!

Being in grocery e-commerce has not always been easy. It’s been the often-forgotten ugly duckling compared to bricks and mortar retail. There have been challenges with budgets and attention and strategic alignment and profit margins. Now we have a chance to make grocery e-commerce mean something. I believe that something is this:

Helping people find more foods that help them achieve their health and wellness goals. Helping people shop quickly and easily to spend more time doing what they really love. (more Zoom calls, anyone?)

If you believe in this mission too, then let’s be in touch or stay in touch. Let’s turn this ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Let’s take this strange, never-to-be-repeated slice of time and run with it, and do something great in the world.