Throughout the world and across every product category, our studies have consistently confirmed an underlying universal reality: The e-commerce shopping experience is not well suited for packaged goods products. In physical stores, consumers typically shop on autopilot for most grocery items, looking for familiar colors, shapes and icons to quickly navigate through overwhelming aisles. In behavioral economics terms, this is a “System 1” shopping experience, driven largely by habit and familiar packaging.
The dominant e-commerce shopping interface (used by Amazon and most other e-retailers) disrupts this natural, largely subconscious navigation process, and it limits shoppers’ ability to quickly “de-select” among many options and compare items. Instead, it encourages clicking on individual images (and/or searching and filtering) to learn more about products. It is a “System 2” shopping process, far better-suited to more information intensive and higher engagement products (such as books, movies and electronics) than the weekly groceries.