Criteo Research Points to Five Strategies CPG Marketers Must Embrace to Capture the Always-On Shopper in this Competitive Sector

Brands Must Continually Invest in Customer Education and Engagement to Drive Consideration, Conversion and Loyalty

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Dec 13, 2018, 08:00 ET

NEW YORK, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ: CRTO), the advertising platform for the open Internet, released "Digital Lists and Infinite Aisles: Putting CPG & Ecommerce on the Same Shelf." Analysis of Criteo's Sponsored Products CPG data underscores the trend of the always-on shopping list where consumers add to, and purchase from, a mix of mobile, tablet and desktop devices based on convenience. Yet despite shoppers' growing preference for online shopping in this category, which encompasses pantry and snacks, healthcare, baby care, paper goods, fabric care and personal care, each subcategory is defined by varying purchase patterns and brand affinity considerations.

"As the vertical that contains a large number of consumer's modern necessities, CPG retailers have the opportunity to create a unique connection with shoppers through their daily online habits," said John Roswech, Executive Vice President, Brand Solutions, Criteo. "The desire for convenience has driven the growth in online shopping as the modern shopper expects easier, faster and more personalized experiences for products they use every day."

Key findings from the report include:

Seasonal Holidays and Weekends Spike Sales: CPG sales show spikes from Cyber Monday through New Years, suggesting resolutions are making shoppers stock up on essential items to start the year off right. The top categories performing during the 2017 holiday break were personal care (4.7 x average daily sales), beauty care (4.6 x) and pantry snacks (3.3x). Similarly, the Criteo data also saw CPG mobile sales increasing on weekends, as consumers gravitate toward better app and payment experiences. In the past year mobile CPG growth has ranged from 5% – 10%.
Convenience Key to Success: When looking at the most important reasons for making a purchase at a specific website, free shipping on returns was ranked as the top priority across baby, grocery, health and beauty aids. This is especially prevalent with grocers, as many customers are now not only expecting free delivery, but also delivery within the same day. This was followed by available discounts, organized product reviews, appealing photos and a good range of unique products. Convenience also has the power to secure repeat customers. Criteo found that 36% of Big Box shoppers return to buy while grocery stores saw repeat shoppers of up to 64% in the first six months of 2018.
Personal Care Wins New Shoppers: The category most likely to convert new shoppers within CPG shopping online is personal care; with beauty brands often debuting new products, enticing first-time shoppers. Criteo found that 30% of attributed personal care purchases were from new users, which is directly opposite from the food category which has the lowest percentage of brand affinity purchases.
Impulse Purchasing Frequent Online: While in-store unplanned purchases are roughly consistent across categories, there is significantly more variety in impulse behavior online; more than a third of online baby care shoppers confirm that they make impulse purchases. This is likely due to the personalization that is possible via technology online and can be lacking in brick-and-mortar. These high-intent shoppers know where to find their CPG items and are more focused on executing the transaction.

Criteo CPG Report Methodology

The data for the CPG Report was taken from 17 Criteo Network Retailers with volume in CPG categories. To note, not all of the retailers had sales in all of the categories.
For purchase frequency, data used was from January 1, 2018 to June 30, 2018 across all retailers.
For brand affinity, the data was aggregated from prior studies on large brands within each category.

For a complete look at the CPG report, view the findings at: www.criteo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/18_CPG_Report_Print_New.pdf.

About Criteo
Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO) is the advertising platform for the open Internet, an ecosystem that favors neutrality, transparency and inclusiveness. 2,700 Criteo team members partner with over 19,000 customers and thousands of publishers around the globe to deliver effective advertising across all channels, by applying advanced machine learning to unparalleled data sets. Criteo empowers companies of all sizes with the technology they need to better know and serve their customers. For more information, please visit www.criteo.com.

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SOURCE Criteo