St?phane Roger: ?Growth is a mix of online and offline"

In this new edition of Perspectives we talk to Stéphane Roger, Global Shopper & Retail Director of Kantar Worldpanel. Taking advantage of his privileged knowledge of retail across the world, we asked him about global trends and what to expect in the coming years in this field. Our expert, in return, provides brands with some tips to find growth in retail and evolve faster in e-commerce.

The retail sector saw last year a slight recovery of 1.9% growth in value. However, Stéphane Roger notes that this was mainly due to inflation in the UK, Latin America and Africa. Following this, he highlights the disconnection between two important indicators:

            “There is a clear disconnect between GDP and FMCG growth”.

This situation, he notes, is unlikely to change in the next years. A reason to believe so is that the global population is slowing down, people are getting older and there is a lower purchasing frequency.

“Shoppers are moving to less expensive options, like discounters, private labels or promotions”.

When we ask our expert where can brands find growth in retail, he speaks clear: the biggest slice of the cake is in e-commerce. This channel grew 15% last year and represents already 5.8% of total FMCG spend. In some categories, as Beauty, it is much more developed, reaching 10%.

“76% of FMCG growth comes from outside of the supermarkets and hypermarkets”.

Stéphane Roger closed our interview with some ideas for e-commerce to evolve even faster. As he notes, in the last 12 months, about 35 billion dollars have been made in the acquisition of agencies: Amazon with Whole Foods, Hema Fresh moving from Alibaba and Walmart with Flipkart in India.

            “I think growth is all about merging online and offline experiences”.

Watch the full Perspectives interview clicking on the video on top and drop us a message if you want to know more about e-commerce possibilities.