Conventional wisdom posited that grocery-anchored shopping centers would be immune from the Amazon effect. While that might be the case for now, industry insiders say grocers need to adapt—not just in light of a potential threat from e-commerce players, but also because of the increasing number of competitors in the space.
So far, online shopping—while taking a toll on department stores and the brick-and-mortar apparel retailers in particular—has not hit grocery stores as hard. Recent analysis from Morningstar Credit Ratings, which focused on Campbell’s soup, noted that online purchasing of grocery products hasn’t gained a lot of traction: it accounts for “a low-single-digit percentage of total sales.”
