1. Setting up promotions and special flyers

Promotions are one of the most effective ways to attract customers. By highlighting special offers on popular products, you can capture the attention of your regular customers while enticing new buyers. Make sure to promote these offers on your your grocery online store, in your newsletter, and on social media. It is important to build a customer base to promote your special offers.

💡 Practical Tip: Offer discounts on products purchased in bulk, or create "buy one, get one half off" promotions to stimulate impulse buying.

2. Offer a loyalty program

Loyalty programs are great for encouraging customers to return. By offering rewards for regular purchases, you can increase purchase frequency and the average amount per transaction, thereby boosting your grocery store sales. Consider a points system, exclusive discounts, or special benefits for loyal members.

💡 Practical Tip: Use your online store to track loyalty points and send automatic notifications to customers when they are close to receiving a reward. Companies like Data Candy allow you to set up this type of program.

3. List your grocery store on Google Business

By listing your grocery on Google Business, you expose your store to a wider audience. This marketing strategy makes it easier for potential customers to find you. This will increase your foot traffic and, consequently, your potential sales.

💡 Practical Tip: Optimize the description of your grocery store on your Google Business listing. This will help you appear among the top search results. When creating the online store with Onetrip, we perform this optimization work to offer you maximum visibility.

4. Optimize product placement on shelves

This is a well-known but still effective marketing technique for grocery store. Place best sellers and high-margin products at eye level. And, keep the cheaper products as low as possible.

5. Create an online store

This may seem counterintuitive, but having an online store can actually increase sales at your physical grocery store. Indeed, an online store is a powerful marketing tool for your business. When potential customers search for your grocery store online, they discover your products and services, which may encourage them to visit your store.

If you offer a pickup service, customers can place orders online and pick up their purchases in-store. Once on-site, they will also be tempted to buy other products.
Additionally, the online store allows you to collect customers' email addresses, giving you the opportunity to send them special offers and promotions.
Finally, the online store gives you the ability to receive orders directly, which will help increase your sales. With OneTrip, you can easily create your online store and provide fast delivery to your customers.

💡 Practical Tip: Start by creating a non-transactional site to build your audience for your newsletter. Choose a domain name with high search volume.

6. Collaborate with influencers

Partnering with influencers for marketing can increase in-store sales. Through a partnership, you can highlight your promotions and thus increase the visibility of your grocery store. It is important to ensure that the influencer has an audience that matches your target customer profile. Additionally, the posted content must be authentic and engaging to spark customer interest.

💡 Practical Tip: Start by reaching out to micro-influencers in the grocery sector. With micro-influencers, you will have an easier time negotiating an affordable deal and achieving a better purchase intent than with larger influencers.

7. Reduce waiting at checkout

To avoid discouraging customers with long waits at checkout, it is important to invest in optimized point-of-sale solutions and structure the space to minimize lines:

• Single line: This system streamlines the flow at checkout. Cashiers call customers one by one, ensuring a more equitable wait time for all and reducing frustrations.

• Self-checkout: Customers can pay for their purchases themselves at automated kiosks. To enhance security, measures such as scanning barcodes at exit or manual checks may be implemented.

• Click and Collect: Customers order online and come to pick up their purchases in-store, which helps reduce traffic at traditional checkouts.

These strategies contribute to improving the customer experience and increasing point-of-sale efficiency.

8. Install digital labels

Digital labels are a modern and effective solution to enhance the customer experience in-store. By clearly and dynamically displaying product prices, they allow customers to obtain the information they need immediately, without having to ask staff. This transparency promotes a smoother shopping experience, reduces friction points, and thus helps to increase in-store sales.

9. Organize tasting events in-store

In collaboration with your suppliers, organize tasting events and promote them on your communication channels. This marketing strategy is ideal for grocery store since they are in contact with many suppliers. These joint initiatives will also allow you to reach your partners' audience, who will thus discover your products.

💡 Practical Tip: Plan one event per month in your grocery store and offer a special promotion on the featured products. Make sure to collaborate with at least two suppliers for each event to mitigate any potential unavailability of one of them.

10. Grocery mail marketing

With the rise of online shopping, this strategy may not be ideal for all grocery stores. However, if your clientele is primarily offline, direct mail can be an effective method to increase your sales.

💡 Practical Tip: Be sure to comply with new environmental regulations regarding direct mail. Use recycled paper to minimize the ecological impact of your promotions.

11. Send circulars/flyers

Circulars may seem outdated, but recent studies show they remain an essential promotional tool for grocery stores despite the rise of digital media. Consumers still appreciate printed circulars for planning their purchases, with 72% of them regularly consulting them.

12. Increase your social media followers

If your grocery store is not yet present on social media, you are missing out on a large pool of potential customers that could contribute to increasing your sales. Depending on your customer profile, it is essential to target platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

💡 Practical Tip: Start by focusing on a single platform. Post between 1 and 3 times a week, and once you have identified what works for your grocery store and have mastered one platform well, explore another one. We suggest starting with TikTok. Indeed, today the average time spent on this platform is 1 hour per day, the highest of all other platforms.

13. List a limited inventory of products on marketplaces

By listing a restricted selection of products on marketplaces, you can leverage the visibility of these platforms while encouraging customers to visit your grocery online store or physical location. This marketing strategy offers several advantages. On one hand, it allows focusing users' attention on a specific assortment, showcasing your best-selling or most interesting products. On the other hand, by including information about your store or exclusive offers available only on your site or in-store, you can draw buyers to your business and your online store, where they will discover a wider selection of products and enjoy a personalized experience.

💡 Practical Tip: You can set higher prices on the marketplace to further encourage customers to visit your grocery store or your online shop.

14. Offer private label products

Private label products can increase profit margins by 10% while strengthening customer loyalty. In Europe, private label products account for about 35% of sales, compared to only 19% in the United States. By increasing the offer of private label products and incorporating local or artisanal items, your grocery store can stand out from other businesses and attract customers looking for authentic and affordable products.

15. Increase foot traffic in your grocery store

To increase sales in your business, you must also boost foot traffic in your grocery store. Here are some strategies to achieve this:

• Modernize the storefront of your grocery store to make it more attractive and capture the attention of passersby.

• Offer additional services, such as free Wi-Fi, a café area, or a ready-to-eat meals section, to enrich the customer experience.

• Implement in-store exclusive promotions to encourage customers to visit.

• Run advertisements on bus shelters to attract new customers.

These options are just a glimpse of what is possible. We will soon publish a detailed article on effective techniques to increase foot traffic in your grocery store.

Increase your store's sales with OneTrip

OneTrip gives you the opportunity not only to have an online presence but also to increase the sales of your grocery store. Thanks to the various optimizations we implement for your store, you can attract more customers. We also help you implement some of the marketing strategies specific to grocery store. Book a demo to discover how we can support your business development.