e-Grocery Terms and Definitions
E-grocery is defined as business to consumer e-commerce for the purpose of selling groceries on a grocery retailers’ e-commerce platform. Learn e-grocery terms and definitions for this growing industry.
Quick Commerce refers to e-commerce in a new, faster form. It combines the features of legacy e-commerce with innovations in last-mile delivery. It primarily supports food delivery but has expanded to other categories particularly for grocery delivery, medicines, gifts, and apparel, etc. The speed of delivery is the main differentiator, delivery is in minutes not days, usually 30 minutes or less. Quick commerce is also referred to as ‘Q-commerce’ or ‘on-demand delivery’.
Geofencing is the use of location technology to create a virtual geographic boundary. A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area, which can be dynamically generated (as in a radius around a point location) or match a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighborhoods). It involves a location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user entering or exiting a geo-fence. This activity could trigger an alert to the device’s user as well as messaging to the geo-fence operator. This information, which could contain the location of the device, could be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account, for example.
Location-Based Service is general term denoting software services which use geographic data and information to provide services or information to users. LBS can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, indoor object search, entertainment, work, personal life, etc. Commonly used examples of location based services include navigation software, social networking services, location-based advertising, and tracking systems. LBS can also include mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location.
Generally, a freshness code indicates the sell by date or date where the food is no longer guaranteed, although it may still be edible. There are no uniform or universally accepted descriptions used on food labels for open dating in the United States. As a result, there are a wide variety of phrases used on labels to describe quality dates.
A digital shelf is the collection of diverse and rapidly evolving digital touch-points used by shoppers to engage with brands and discover, research, and purchase products online. It’s the online counterpart to a shelf in a physical store.
E-commerce is the activity of electronically buying or selling of food and consumable products ordered using the internet via any devices, regardless of the method of payment or fulfillment. This channel includes Amazon and Peapod as well as the e-commerce business generated by traditional brick & mortar retailers, e.g., Coborns (Coborns Delivers) and ShopRite (ShopRite from Home and ShopRite Delivers). The other non-traditional retail segments above include their e-commerce business.
Click and collect is placing an order online (‘click’) and driving to the store to collect the order.
Buy online pick-up in store a customer places order online, but drives to store to pick up the order versus home delivery.
Although there are many order picking methodologies, batch picking is a process whereby one (or many) operator(s) travel through a distribution center or warehouse picking SKU’s for multiple orders on a single trip.