whether it's non-GMO, or organic, and
we need to know where those products
are on the shelf, and how to get them to
the customer.
"We are human, and we like that
human interaction."
Online Advantages
Monica Schechter, specialty and interna-
tional food category manager at Jet.com
and Walmart.com, said that as consumers
increasingly look for foods that meet their
specific dietary and nutritional needs, they
will either seek out personalized service in
the store or turn to e-commerce providers
that can make it easy to find such items.
Asked by panel moderator Phil
Lempert, founder of The Lempert Report, if
there's a danger that consumers will be less
likely to discover new products while shop-
ping online than they would in the store,
Schechter said e-commerce has evolved to
a point where suggestive selling has become
much more sophisticated than simply pre-
senting a list of previously ordered items.
"That was e-commerce 1.0, and now
we are heading towards e-commerce 2.0,"
she said. "We understand your preferences,
but we can also use technology to help
you find new products, or help you find
other products that match your profile—
using technology to help with that
discovery experience."
Tony Stallone, vice president of mer-
chandising for Peapod, the online grocery
arm of Ahold Delhaize in the U.S., said the
key to success in the age of blended physical
stores/e-commerce is to focus on listening to
what the customer wants.
"You can't take your eye off the ball,
and where is the ball? The ball is the cus-
tomer," he said.
Amazon acquiring Whole Foods "rein-
forces our strategy to be everywhere the
customer is," said Stallone. "Whether they
want to shop in the store, and pick up at
"If we don't think differently, we are going
to be left behind." —Tony Stallone, Peapod
FALL 2017 63
