Mastering E-Commerce: Leveraging Category Nuances to Unlock Growth

E-commerce growth rates have slowed from historic pandemic-related highs, meaning it is no longer a rising tide for all categories and brands. While vast potential exists, with e-commerce expected to account for half of retail’s growth over the next five years, retailers and brands need to get savvier as they search for new online opportunities. This briefing explores opportunities and challenges across four key areas: beauty and personal care, consumer health, food and soft drinks.

Key findings

Beauty and personal care e-commerce boosted by the rise of personalisation

Beauty and personal care stands out as having the third highest e-commerce penetration rate among fast-moving consumer goods. Brands that have not yet leveraged a degree of personalisation online or mobile devices risk losing share in this space, since personalisation helps overcome uncertainties in product trial.

Consumer health e-commerce complicated by regulatory environments

While the online market for consumer health continues to benefit from wider development of the e-commerce channel, local regulations still play a significant role in determining industry penetration by country. The markets with looser restrictions on the sale and delivery of health products will continue to lead the global marketplace over the near term.

Food e-commerce benefits from inflationary environment

Consumers remain hyper vigilant for good deals and ways to push their shopping bills back towards the halcyon days of 2019 prices. Online food retail, which offers opportunities to reduce spending on food, will triumph in this pricing environment.

Higher pricing and functional formats fuel e-commerce growth for soft drinks

Although e-commerce represents only a fraction of total soft drinks sales volume, the channel has performed strongly, despite significant cost-of-living challenges. Higher pricing and optimised price-pack architecture have been particularly prominent for online products. Premium categories, like sports and energy drinks, have also thrived with their online-friendly powder mix format.

The Mastering E-Commerce: Leveraging Category Nuances to Unlock Growth global briefing offers an insight into the size and shape of the retailing industry, highlights emerging trends, their effects on retailing in markets around the world, on the development of channels and consumers’ shopping patterns. It identifies the leading companies and brands, offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be they the developments of new store types, the importance of non-store retailing, economic/lifestyle influences, private label or pricing issues. Forecasts illustrate how the market is set to change and criteria for success.

Product coverage: Retail E-Commerce, Retail Offline.

Data coverage: market sizes (historic and forecasts), company shares, brand shares and distribution data.

Why buy this report?

• Get a detailed picture of the Retail market
• Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change
• Understand the competitive environment, the market’s major players and leading brands
• Use five-year forecasts to assess how the market is predicted to develop.