Seen and Heard at GroceryShop 2019

In just two years GroceryShop has gone from startup to must-attend industry event overflowing with educational and networking opportunities.

The event was once again held in Las Vegas at the Venetian hotel and casino. The four-day event, September 15-18, featured the who’s who of the grocery both on the educational stage and the show floor.

More than 3,000 attendees packed into the Venetian convention center to explore and interact with new technology, hear how their peers are leveraging that technology to react to an ever changing market, and of course network with fellow grocers in a stress-free, fun-filled environment.  

Smart People, Saying Smart Things

The GroceryShop agenda was chock full of top-notch educational sessions, which featured grocery’s best and brightest sharing their experiences and opinions in numerous breakout and keynote sessions. Below is just a taste of some off the smart things, super smart people said over GrocerShop’s four days.

“If you can’t fulfill it, it doesn’t really matter. If you really want to please shoppers you need to be fast. If we want to be successful and create demand for our brands we need to be able to fulfill in a way that is as fast as possible.”  - Brian Sappington, Chief Digital Integration Officer, Coca-Cola

“I don’t pay much attention to driverless cars. But driverless trucking is important. We have a shortage of 75,000 drivers in this country. And we can’t look to other countries like we have in the past because both Canada and Mexico are dealing with big driver shortages as well.” - David Marcotte, SVP Cross-Border, Cross-Industry & Technology, Kantar

“We define better as faster. We deliver in 30 minutes because it is faster and more convenient that going to the store. We have a physical store because an online only dark store would take a tremendous amount of volume and I hate to advertise.” - Barnaby Montgomery, Co-Founder & CEO, Yummy.com

“Buying tech from others was inefficient and very ineffective. We took our innovation in-house, and employ hundreds of designers.” - David Hardiman-Evans, SVP, North America, Ocado Solutions

“The definition of convenience has fundamentally changed. For digital natives it is embedded in how they view the world. We are transforming how we operate to be more high tech, which enables us to service consumers better.” - Carolyn Tastad, Group President, North America & Executive Sponsor, Gender Equality, Procter & Gamble

“We believe that technology without human touch is not relevant, it is about having that personal interaction. Our shoppers are our secret sauce, we want to make sure they feel valued.” - Kelly Caruso, CEO, Shipt

“A lot of stuff we build actually doesn’t work and we celebrate that. We build on learnings and iterate until [the technology] is a winner for our members.” - Jamie Iannone, CEO, SamsClub.com & EVP, Membership & Technology, Sam’s Club

“People want to buy your brand. Not spend more time with your brand. Convenience is the new dollar off.” - Jennifer Silverberg, CEO, SmartCommerce

“If our fresh food department is running well. Typically the whole club is running well.” - John Furner, CEO, Sam’s Club

“Our goal in grocery is to be Target. Food and beverage should be part of the magic Target experience.” - Stephanie Lundquist, Executive VP and President of Food and Beverage, Target

News from the GroceryShop Floor

With so much of the industry gathered in one place grocers and solution providers alike took advantage of the increased spotlight on the segment to go live with new product offerings and technology updates. Below is a quick look at some off the hot news from the show.

• Onfleet and Mi9 Retail announced that the two companies have partnered to provide end-to-end grocery e-commerce and last-mile delivery software. Mi9 Retail’s Enterprise Commerce Platform helps drive revenue growth for grocers. Onfleet’s fleet management software helps enterprise grocers and supermarkets improve the efficiency of their delivery operations. 
• Farmstead, an online grocer, announced that it is expanding to the Carolinas after inking a partnership with Southeast grocery company Alex Lee, parent company of grocer Lowes Foods and grocery distributor Merchants Distributors. The partnership enables Farmstead and Alex Lee to expand their reach in complementary markets without the need to open any physical stores.
• dunnhumby announced the launch of dunnhumby Labs (dh Labs), an internal accelerator focused on bringing innovative technologies that expand and advance the company’s current product offerings in the global retail marketplace. The new business unit will be led by Kyle Fugere, who also heads dunnhumby Ventures.
• Ondeq announced the general availability of its new teamwork platform. Instead of multiple tools that do not talk to each other, Ondeq centralizes essential internal process like dashboards, reports, tasks, checklists, store communication, automated notifications, and more.
• Point Pickup showcased its Precision Delivery Model, featuring Micro DriverNetworks. Instead of simply locating the closest on-demand driver to a retailer’s store, the solution matches the appropriate driver, in the correct vehicle, to exact delivery specifications.
• Engage3, which helps retailers and manufacturers manage their pricing strategy through competitive data, data science, and AI-powered software solutions, announced Price Image as a new metric for retailers and manufacturers to measure and manage the effectiveness of their pricing. Price Image is a measurement of the value promise a retailer makes to its customers, and how customers perceive a retailer's pricing.
• Glympse, a real-time location sharing solution provider that helps deliver a frictionless last mile customer experience, announced the launch of its Curbside & In-Store Pickup. The product is designed to facilitate safe, temporary and secure customer-to-business location sharing and multichannel arrival notifications in a way that allows retail, grocery and quick service restaurant brands to optimize pickup for both themselves and their customers.
• Linqia launched two new functionalities of its Enhanced Shopper solution: Shoppable Universal Checkout Embedded in Social Media and Enhanced Ecommerce Product Pages.  Shoppable Universal Checkout Embedded in Social Media allows marketers to partner with influencers to share content that allows consumers to purchase products from their social media feeds. Enhanced Ecommerce Product Pages enhances product pages on retailer sites by showing customers using the product in an authentic way.