IGD highlights key Asia grocery trends

Asia continues to be a hotspot for digital and technology adoption, with grocery retailers increasingly experimenting with new solutions and this will continue into 2018. That’s according to IGD, which has released its top five trends that will shape the Asia grocery retail market over the next 12 months.

“Test and play with new innovations will remain important, but to get buy-in from retailers’ digital solutions will need to improve the shopping experience or drive profitability,” says Nick Miles, Head of Asia-Pacific at IGD. He adds that the grocery landscape in Asia continued to move at a fast pace in 2017, with retailer market entries and exits, the repurposing of store networks, the growing emergence of online and rapid experimentation with technology.

“Although consumer habits and landscape evolution vary across the region, there are common trends and opportunities. In 2018, we expect Asian-based retailers to expand their store networks, to see a further focus on format differentiation and smaller format stores, greater fluidity and collaboration online, plus a shift to technologies that will help businesses be more efficient.”