Avocado roulette: rethinking grocery industry jobs for the digital economy

The COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the nature of grocery shopping.? According to FMI , the transition to online shopping as a portion of all grocery spend skyrocketed to?27.9%?within the first four weeks of the US lockdown in 2020. The speed of this shift is remarkable, considering that only?10.5%?of grocery spend was online in 2019. Furthermore, the highest rates of adoption were among future generations of consumers, starting with millennials with kids (65%), Gen Z (54%) and Gen X (43%). This paradigm shift to online shopping marked the beginning of a new era for the grocery industry. And somewhat paradoxically, it means that the in-store employee experience will likely become even more critical to creating customer experiences that build brand loyalty and grow online and offline revenue.?

The changing nature of grocery shopping

It might appear consumer grocery shopping habits have returned to how they were before the pandemic as people are once again going to stores on a regular basis. But just because people are in stores does not mean they are shopping the same way they did before 2020.? To the contrary, 67% of shoppers purchased some of their groceries online in 2024, the highest level ever (FMI ).?And 37% of shopper used online price comparisons to determine where to shop. It is likely the incoming generation of digital-native customers will even more strongly prefer online grocery shopping compared to older consumers whose shopping behaviors were shaped in a pre-internet world.?

The growth in online shopping during the pandemic also heightened customer awareness of the differences between buying perishable and non-perishable items. When it comes to buying perishable items, only 8% of consumers favor online shopping over in-store purchases. This realization is humorously captured by a concept called “avocado roulette,” which refers to the experience of shopping for a sensitive perishable product online without touching or smelling it to ensure quality and freshness. You never know what kind of avocado will show up: ripe, overly mushy, or hard like a rock.

This contradiction highlights a critical truth about the grocery business's current direction: in-store shopping will always provide advantages over online shopping when it comes to buying perishable products. This is especially the case when size, color, ripeness, taste, texture, smell, and other characteristics vary widely across the same items. Stores can use the unique experience associated with shopping for perishable items to differentiate themselves from online retailers and build customer loyalty for both online and instore purchases.

Internet shopping has and will continue to increase, but it will never remove the need for a personalized, human touch in the grocery customer experience. To deliver the value, convenience, and experience that will shape customer loyalty both on and offline, store leadership must equip in-store employees with proper product training, improved engagement and retention, and make in-store processes more efficient. Doing so enables employees to stay focused on activities that matter most in a store – which are the customers, not the products.

Customer and employee experiences deliver future growth – together

The Internet can do a lot of amazing things, but it can never provide an authentic human connection between stores and their customers – only people can care for other people. In the context of a grocery store, this means ensuring customers are greeted and welcomed by employees who are genuinely happy to see them. Employees who care about them, who are experts on the foods they sell, and who can guide shopping choices and offer tips on the best way to use different products. This requires ensuring employees have the motivation, knowledge and time to ensure customers leave the store feeling as good or better than when they came in.

So how can stores prepare their employees to deliver such a high-value experience? By revamping talent management practices to address four things that frequently undermine the employee experience in grocery jobs:

• ?Rethink the low-wage, high-turnover employment model for store associates.?Increase people’s expectations of what it means to be a grocery worker by viewing most positions as highly skilled jobs with good, long-term career prospects. Employees should be considered as experts who engage, advise, and educate customers throughout the shopping experience. This new paradigm can be established by providing employees with ongoing, meaningful training and translating skill growth into adequate pay and benefits.
• Respect employees as assets to be maximized, not costs to be managed.?Actively listen to their opinions about work and what would make them more productive and engaged.
• Understand customer needs and provide high-value products at reasonable costs.?Measure customer expectations and preferences and use modern supply chain technology to source and provide cost-effective, high-quality, and desirable perishable items. This exercise also includes investing in solutions that provide employees with the knowledge to engage customers in exceptional interactions, instead of just fast transactions.
• Reconsider staffing models and store layouts.?Focus on store layouts and staffing models that encourage high levels of employee-customer interactions. With an analytics-based scheduling solution, operational managers can assess customer needs and store traffic on an hourly basis, then match that information to existing skills. This insight inspires the creation of innovative scheduling strategies that increase employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and store performance. Meanwhile, customers will likely leave the store with a memorable service experience.

A better version of the grocery industry is emerging

Despite the challenges facing grocery companies, I remain an optimist for the grocery industry and the broader retail industry in general. What I see happening is an opportunity to grow revenue by redefining the future of their customer experience through elevating the skills and value of frontline jobs and improving the socioeconomic status of frontline workers.