PepsiCo’s Pepviz Reveals Consumer Shifts: Omnichannel Growth and Food & Beverage Resilience
Inflation-weary shoppers continue to make trade-offs, but food and beverage remain resilient, positioning key categories for expansion in 2025.
PepsiCo’s Pepviz data science practice reported that the power of the omnichannel shopper continues to grow, with nearly half of food and beverage shoppers now purchasing across multiple channels — increasing from less than one-third before COVID.
In 2024, Pepviz found consumers shopped at an average of nearly 17 different retailers, with grocery (+3.5%), dollar (+0.6%), convenience (+0.5%), and club (+0.1%) all seeing year-over-year increases.
According to their recent report, three core areas — joyful experiences, tailored assortments, and emerging trends — provide opportunities to reach shoppers, especially Gen-Z and Hispanic consumers.
Redefining Consumer Value
Consumers are redefining value beyond discounts. They seek personalized deals, engaging loyalty programs, and seamless shopping experiences. Emotional engagement is also key, with shoppers favoring brands and retailers that reduce decision fatigue and enhance shopping satisfaction, Pepviz shared.
“Value continues to mean different things to different shoppers, but it has shifted from being fixed and implicit to purposeful and emotional,” the study explained.
For Hispanic consumers, the value is in family rituals, or “Familismo." Data shows that the average household spends $2.5 million on food and beverages at home over a lifetime — 25% more than non-Hispanic households. Last year, Pepviz laid out a framework for appealing to the complex needs of Gen Z, with a focus on their love-hate relationship with technology and need for phygital environments.
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What’s clear is there is no one-size-fits-all, with 45% of shoppers tending to shop around for different deals, while 57% prefer a one-stop shop.
Meeting these shoppers where they are — wherever and however they choose to shop, will be key. What’s also crucial is relevance and personalization — 69% of shoppers will spend time looking for the best deal, not just based on the individual shopper themselves, but the point at which they’re at in the shopper journey.
The data points to immediacy, convenience, robust loyalty programs, unique flavors, and sustainable products as key to gaining and keeping shopper attention.
Getting Granular With Merchandising
Shoppers are responding and making spur-of-the-moment purchases in different contexts.
In-store:
- Incremental category purchases are driven by in-store displays and signage.
- Specific item decisions are influenced by pre-shop digital out-of-home ads, podcasts/radio, and in-store sampling and shelf strips.
Online:
- Incremental category purchases are driven by banner ads on other sites or brand-specific stores and push notifications.
- Specific item decisions are shaped by banner ads on retailer sites leading to brand-specific stores.
This was originally published on P2PI, a CGT sister publication.
