New Service Opportunities in the E‐grocery Business

Currently, efforts in the e‐grocery business focus on improving the purchase transaction and physical distribution of goods. However, simply improving ordering and fulfillment does not make e‐grocery shopping a viable competitor to the current supermarket business model. To become a profitable growth business, the e‐grocers have to offer their customers more value. It is not enough to offer customers a range of physical products. A range of new meaningful services is also needed. This article investigates how such new, breakthrough services can be developed. A framework for systematically examining customer demand and identifying corresponding services is presented. The importance of the e‐grocer being able to offer the right mix of services to meet the customers' individual and changing needs is demonstrated. Concrete examples of both new services and a service mix are described.