Apps and websites, increasingly relevant for consumers when making purchases

At a time when the price of groceries is rising and incomes are falling, consumers are looking for new ways to make a living and try to save day after day. 33% of them, by way of example, use digital resources to plan their purchases of the week.

Acosta Sales and Marketing has recently published a report called “The Why Behind the Buy”, through which it shows what current trends are and what retailers and retailers can do to stay ahead of the game.

In general, Acosta found that consumers are more conservative than in the past, this behavior being classified as the “new normal”. This happens because buyers are spending 3% more on groceries in the short term, but they get a lot less than before.

To survive, consumers are switching to cheaper brands and 50% of them say that promotions when an item is put up for sale and discount coupons are more popular than ever.

Planning is also key and that is where applications and websites make their game. While paper advertising continues to be the main source of information, 33% of respondents said they use applications and websites to trace the purchase plan. For the most part, they use these sources to find coupons, but they also use applications to create shopping lists and other types of promotions or information.

To communicate with brands and sellers, email continues to be the leading channel, but visits to the website have decreased slightly in favor of new technologies such as social networks and SMS.

Acosta experts recommend that brands have to be creative with digital and mobile assets, as well as recommend using other resources and tools such as QR codes and sending samples to online shoppers while they are in their stores conducting searches. In addition, continuing to strengthen their communication channels and actions, beyond coupons, recipes or the use of social networks for care, should be their priority.