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These days, supermarkets are under attack from a host of retail competitors looking to up their ante in the grocery business, including mass merchants, warehouse clubs, chain drug stores, dollar stores and convenience stores, among others.
One emerging competitor that’s been drawing more attention lately are online grocery services, which offer the benefits of being able to order food and other grocery items from your home PC or mobile device and then have it delivered right to your doorstep.
But these players face a number of hurdles in gaining broad consumer acceptance, according to Dr. Kurt Jetta, founder and chief executive officer of TABS Analytics.
In a segment yesterday for the “CBS Sunday Morning” TV newsmagazine feature “Food Issue,” Jetta told CBS News correspondent Anna Werner that the online grocery segment currently represents just a smidgen of the market, and it’s profitability remains a question mark — despite a flood of new players.
“I call it the sheep effect,” he said in the video report, titled “The Rise of Online Food Delivery.”
What’s more, finding and examining grocery products through an online service can entail more work than just grabbing an item off the shelf in a store, and online outlets may not serve up the best pricing, according to Jetta.
*Video courtesy of CBS Sunday Morning.