Publix Supermarkets, for instance, has delayed the launch of its online shopping subsidiary, PublixDirec, similarly H.E.B. announced that it has indefinitely postponed its plans to enter the business. Back in January of 2000, I noted in this space that Glen Terbeek, long an expert observer of the industry, told an audience in Atlanta at the Retail Store Development Conference that he believed that stores as we know them would change because of the growing influence of online shopping. Stores, Terbeek said, would eventually become smaller, service-oriented neighborhood fresh food markets, merchandising perhaps only 5,000 SKUs of grocery items. Grocery Web sites, on the other hand, would offer customers an almost endless array of grocery merchandise. After the events of recent months it seems as this vision of the grocery retailing future is even further off than originally thought.
Indications are that two things are happening.
Retailers and e-tailers are no longer envisioning a time when most shoppers will get the majority of their needs online. Stores, as we know them, will not become the exception instead of the norm for acquiring groceries. Online grocery shopping will not fade away like so many fads that the industry has endured in the past. We've given shoppers a taste of online food shopping - many have enjoyed the experience. Online grocery buying will clearly be a part of the industry's future.