The Online Impact at the Grocery Store

I downloaded a great iPhone app called Cereal Scan (from Fooducate). Loads of fun to play around with, and really super easy to use. Just point your camera at a bar code, and it tells you all about the nutrition information of the cereal you may be about to buy … delivering an instant rating from 1 to 5 stars plus an “at a glance” and any warnings about sat fat, sodium and sugar. What’s really fun is Cereal Scan will provide reasonable alternatives to your selection.

This type of mobile usage is starting to catch fire. I’ve been loading apps for scanning as soon as they were available. Red Laser crashed my iPhone on its inaugural day; but, updates have shown continual improvement. Good Guides also has a scanner app, telling you not only nutritional information, but companies’ social and sustainability records as well. Food Scanner is OK … keeps a food diary for you if you want it to, but I’ve found its database isn’t populated with most of the stuff I eat. I do track my food intake, though, through Lose It. But that’s another story.

A recent Deloitte study (conducted in March, 2010 and just released last week) indicates 7 percent of those surveyed are using mobile apps at the grocery store. Why? To compare prices, redeem coupons, find discounts, read product reviews and, of course, get nutritional information either through an app or by linking directly to a company/product Web site.

I’m forever fascinated by the differences in grocery shopping habits between men and women. Mobile usage for food shopping is no different. Overwhelmingly, men use mobile apps to retrieve discounts (53 percent vs. 38 percent) and compare prices (59 percent vs. 49 percent). Women use mobile apps most to obtain nutritional information (36 percent vs. 18 percent).

Armed with information, 23 percent of those surveyed said they have bought a food item because of something read on line; and 22 percent said that they’ve “not purchased a food product as a result of something read online.”

Pat Conroy from Deloitte stated, “Consumers realize their shopping choices have expanded, giving them the ability to be more selective about their purchases based on a variety of criteria. The question companies are asking now is, ‘Will this more critical eye towards purchasing be the new norm or just a passing result of the economic downturn?’.”

Hmmm … my money is on the new norm. How about yours?