In the complex and competitive grocery aisle, consumers now have more product options available to them than ever before. While product offerings have expanded, consumers are increasingly seeking healthier food items and demanding increased product transparency in the food and beverage marketplace. What must manufacturers do to address the changing needs of consumers? One essential is to provide expanded and accurate product content to shoppers while they browse and shop online.
Gladson, the leading provider of digital product content and related services for the consumer goods industry, recently shared data results that further highlight the rise of health-related claims on product packaging. What does the data mean for food and beverage manufacturers? It draws another strong connection to the importance in providing detailed product information to remain competitive in the marketplace.
Show Me the Product Information
Is your company providing the information consumers are seeking? Today, consumers are more critical about the products they buy, and the factors taken into consideration for making a purchase continues to evolve. Insights from a new study by Deloitte, the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), show that 51% of Americans are looking at factors such as health and wellness and transparency as food purchase drivers, in addition to traditional factors such as taste and price. Brands must work to ensure that shoppers have the information they need to select products that align with their health, wellness and lifestyle needs. Some of the product information consumers are looking to find out includes: Is the product gluten-free? Is the product organic? Does the product contain allergens?
While detailed product information that conveys health, wellness and transparency are product attribute purchase drivers now, it’s difficult to predict how consumers’ preferences will change in the future. But what we do know is that consumers want easily accessible product attribute information highlighted on product packaging and available online. A recent study conducted by Harris Poll and commissioned by Digimarc Corporation stated 78% of respondents want more information about a product after reading a description on its package in the store. Today’s food manufacturers are tasked with providing clear and consistent product information across all communication channels to shoppers.
With the Gladson E-Commerce Database featuring over 600,000 items and thousands of products being added and updated each week, the company sees firsthand how shopper behavior is impacting product trends. Based on its database, Gladson announced these findings from the two-year time period of 2013 to 2015
- 61% increase in items marked gluten-free
- 77% increase in items labeled organic
- 43% increase in items with allergen claims
Meeting Digital Content Demand
As the demand for and complexity of product content continues to increase, many food manufacturers have found it challenging to keep content continuously updated and constant across all channels. To help brands fuel and exceed shoppers’ expectations, food manufacturers can work independently or with a third party content solution provider to create a detailed product representation for each product in their company’s offering. This should include multiple high-resolution images, including a 3D spin version, and hundreds of detailed product attributes, such as nutrition facts, ingredients, allergens, weights and dimensions, warnings and marketing claims. Making this information available to consumers on product packaging and via the company website and to retailers directly or through third party content solution providers, will help food manufacturers satisfy today’s information-hungry shoppers.
It is important to remember that when providing detailed product information to shoppers across multiple shopping and communication channels it is very important to ensure it is accurate by following consistent, repeatable, industry-standard processes complete with multiple quality checks to ensure accuracy. And by keeping up with consumer shopping habits, you can stay one step ahead of their product content needs and wants.
About Gladson
Gladson delivers the most comprehensive product content solution on the market today. The company combines the industry’s largest and most dynamic database of consumer product images and information with high-impact category management and Store Optimization Services to maximize sales and operational efficiency. Gladson’s enterprise-ready digital product content fuels strategies for e-commerce, space planning, marketing, advertising, supply chain, market research, mobile applications, master data management and other critical business processes. Gladson’s product content is captured in accordance with GS1 industry standards.
