Survey: CPG brands lack e-commerce confidence

Many CPG companies are still operating e-commerce as a siloed channel.

According to a new survey of 196 brand leaders at CPG companies across the globe from Kantar and Profitero, only 17% of respondents believe their organizations are ahead of the curve when it comes to organizing for e-commerce, compared with the majority (71%) who report they are merely keeping pace or catching up.

Forty percent of respondents report that their organizations lack concrete goals or measurable objectives for e-commerce. Only 11% say that each functional team in their organization has specific e-commerce goals built into strategic growth plans and key performance indicators (KPIs).

Looking at e-commerce challenges, respondents focused on managing profitability and supply chain. Fifty percent of respondents ranked pricing and profitability as their biggest e-commerce challenge, while 40% said adapting their existing supply chain to fit e-commerce is their next biggest challenge.

Other key findings include:
•    One-quarter of brand respondents (25%) report their companies lack a dedicated e-commerce assortment strategy, while 38% report they are simply adapting their offline assortment for e-commerce. About one-third (32%) report that they have yet to develop an e-commerce specific pricing strategy.

•    Sixty percent of respondents only have basic content and/or basic plus enhanced for top SKUs; only 15% are optimizing content to drive sales lift.

•    Six in 10 (61%) respondents only take access to sales and share data for their retailer websites and are not investing in digital shelf or shopper panel data to understand how to optimize opportunities. Only 8% are applying predictive analytics to their e-commerce business.