« My daughter never went to a supermarket »

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who is the co-founder of an online groceries store that delivers food (real food, « organic » as the Americans would say ;) to the citizens of this country. You go to a website, push a few buttons, and you get your food delivered at home the next day. A simple value proposition, one of the biggest logistical challenge I have ever seen hiding behind it.

At some point he told me this:

« My daughter never went to a supermarket. She is 10 years old and knows either online stores – for basic products – or the farmers’ market – for touching products and have a real shopping experience. »

I won’t argue against the fact he is not representative of the whole population, nor will I try to speculate on how much of this situations comes from the girl’s will to support her daddy’s business ;) But it is an interesting evolution. Never go to a supermarket is now conceivable, and if was not true 10 years ago.

If you visit a Carrefour store in France, you will notice how they are focusing on giving consumers a different experience, branding each section of the shop with extreme care, making it more attractive, different, « authentic ». You can get your aspirins from a lady sporting a white blouse, a totally different experience than getting it yourself from a random shelf.

The future of grocery shopping might be a wonderful, sensitive and spectacular experience on one side, with computers, recommendation engines and home delivery on the other. Does that strike a cord? Sounds an awful lot like Apple stores to me.