The Changing E-commerce & CPG Landscape

Did you know that e-commerce is predicted to grow by 20% by 2020? This huge rise would make the e-com market represent about $4 trillion in the global retail market. It’s growing so rapidly that e-com is driving most of the growth in the segment. In dollar terms, that’s growth of $2.1 trillion.

Online retail is projected to equal the FMCG industry in size globally. It’s possibly the biggest shift in consumer habits that we will see in a lifetime.

Too many traditional retailers the growth of e-com is not really all that new. It’s been around for a while and the threat to brick and mortar, to the transformation to the brick-and-click model is well underway. One industry that has been slow to change has been the CPG and FMCG industries. Of the $2.1 trillion projected growth over the next 4 years, the FMCG sector will make up an estimated $.7 trillion. Thats some impressive growth.

This projected growth asks the question, are CPG and FMCG brands ready to capitalize on a consumer that is getting more and more comfortable with shopping online in segment?

The slow adoption of e-commerce for grocery means FMCG brands are still behind on progress made by more traditional online brands such as electronics and apparel. The grocery category is early in it’s e-commerce evolution which means that food brands that position towards e-com can still have a massive advantage.

23% of Americans are buying groceries online today, that’s expected to more than triple in less than 10 years.

This shift will change how FMCG brands are built. Not only will it force brands to put more thought int o their owned web channels it will also force them to rethink product design, packaging design, how they deal with suppliers and manufacturers, advertising, pricing, promotion, and so much more. The move to e-com will drastically shift FMCG, it’s time to start thinking ahead.