The secret is out. CPG organizations can’t ignore e-commerce. But here is the real secret that few will admit to: just launching an e-commerce site doesn’t mean you are done and dusted. You need to think about an e-commerce strategy for a digital world. In reality, the confusion starts here and the faster a CPG company sorts out its goals, the faster it is going to get to the $48 billion pie that e-commerce sales had become by June 2016. An indicator that e-commerce makes good business sense for CPG is in the $13.7 billion Amazon put down for Whole Foods last year. QED.
While the FMCG market has been flat, increasing at a measly 1.6%, e-commerce during the same period accounted for 4.4% of all FMCG sales. In other words, there never has been a better time to get down to the brass tacks of e-commerce. To do this, there are three approaches that a CPG organization can consider, each based on business imperatives:
