Dive Brief:
- PepsiCo Inc. has welcomed Gibu Thomas, Wal-Mart's former head of mobile and digital, who left Wal-Mart to help lead PepsiCo into the future of e-commerce.
- Food and beverage are projected to account for only 2.4% of the e-commerce retail market this year, according to eMarketer, but that category is growing by about 15% annually.
- "E-commerce is shaping up to be the next great revolution in the food and beverage industry," PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May.
Dive Insight:
To adapt to consumers' growing desire to shop for their groceries online, PepsiCo has been "retooling the form, function, packaging, and fulfillment of its products" and "shifting its advertising dollars towards digital media and using e-commerce as a way to expand internationally," Quartz reported. PepsiCo has also been using Amazon as an avenue to test new products before conducting a wider expansion, including its stevia-sweetened Pepsi True.
At Wal-Mart, Thomas helped the hesitant company embrace e-commerce, though Wal-Mart was not sure smartphones would impact retail or whether their customers would be the ones to use them. Under five years of Thomas's guidance, Wal-Mart overhauled its website and e-commerce business, completed several acquisitions, and developed its widely-used mobile app, which follows only Amazon and eBay as the third most-used retailer app.