Study: Consumers To Change Shopping Habits, Convenience Channel Benefits

By 2021 the "Future of Food Retailing 2017" study predicts traditional grocery stores will represent 44.4 percent of dollar sales, which is a slight increase, but the actual number of stores will decrease 24.6 percent, reports the Progressive Grocer. The convenience store channel will see a bump in share, reaching 16.5 percent of dollar sales. The driving force is the change in consumers, who want personalization, indicates the article. Food retailers can't be everything to everyone, but need to be relevant to their core customer. This relevancy needs to be reinforced in marketing, social media, during the purchase, with pricing and in offered services.