Coca-Cola global customer director says online shopping has failed to inspire consumers

Customers aren't always right, says one Coke executive. Photo / 123rf

Impatient, demanding and uninspired - that's how one Coca-Cola executive has described the growing legion of online shoppers swiping on their mobiles, saying companies need to up their game to win business.

Coke's global customer director Simon Miles told IGD's grocery summit that shoppers' expectations are becoming "higher and higher" in terms of service, dictating the speed at which companies must develop.

"The moment they think about it, they want it free, or as close to free as they can get it. And they want it now and they're not prepared to wait," he said. "That's really difficult for us to deal with. That gives you all sorts of phenomenal challenges from a logistics and a supply chain and a product point of view."

Citing a quote often attributed to car inventor Henry Ford, who reportedly said - "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - Miles said some brands have become stuck in the same rut.

"In online grocery shopping typically, we've given people a faster horse. And the reason I think that is when you look at the average website from the grocery point of view, you could argue it's loosely based on the floor plan of the supermarket," he said.

"Then you think from an internet point of view, is that the best experience we could have given our shoppers? Now we all understand why we got there but I still feel like it's a kind of 'faster horse' experience.

"We're better than that. The world is ready for more than that."

The 2017 summit focused on all forms of digital and online trends due to become mainstream in the years ahead. Mr Miles said online grocery selling will become increasingly divided into two streams: autoreplenishment of boring but essential basics, and service orientated ways of enticing customers to buy new things they may not have considered.

Coca-Cola's massive reach means its focus is on retail partnerships, Miles said, except in the case of the successful "Share a Coke" campaign where names were written on bottles and given as gifts.

The phenomenally successful campaign began in Australia in 2011 with 150 names printed in a specially designed font.

It saw more than 250 million cans and bottles sold in a single summer and has since been rolled out to 70 countries around the world.

Coke has suffered a bad month in Australia, losing a Domino's contract and failing to get its no sugar offering on the shelves in Woolworths.

Miles said recent anti-sugar trends have seen the company lead with Zero or Diet products to provide more choice, but doesn't see a future where full-sugar Coke won't exist.

"That'll never be the case. People want to be able to choose that occasionally. There is the absolute right occasion when that's exactly what you want is to be able to choose an ice-cold Coke."