With food prices up 15% from last year, grocers need to work harder to secure consumers’ digital engagement, new insights show, as signs of another inflation-related behavioral shift begin to emerge.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Barbara Connors, vice president of commercial insights at 84.51°, the marketing insights subsidiary of grocery giant Kroger, shared how increasing cost-sensitivity affects adoption of eCommerce channels.

“We know that very price sensitive customers are those that have lower engagement with eCommerce and are lower on the adoption curve, and those are the customers that are most likely to go into a store,” Connors said. “And one of the reasons is because they are looking for sales, deals and coupons, and it is easier for them to do that in-store than online.”

Digital adoption is key to grocers’ ability to drive loyalty and spending in the long term, with each online purchase providing the merchant with more insight into how its customers behave, in turn enabling smarter targeting and more informed decisions down the line.

If deals are indeed consumers’ reason for choosing physical channels over digital, then relevant, easy-to-use digital coupons can go a long way toward directing shoppers to higher-value channels for the retailer. According to data from “Big Retail’s Innovation Mandate: Convenience and Personalization,” a PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration, which drew from a survey of more than 300 retailers, 74% of grocers included think that consumers would be very or extremely likely to switch merchants if digital coupons and rewards were not provided.

Click here to read the full PYMNTS article.