Online grocery shopping in Sweden accounts for only 2% of total grocery sales. However, in terms of growth, it’s a rapidly growing field with annual growth of 20%. This means publishers need to start testing more initiatives in this growing field of business.

Aftonbladet reaches seven out of 10 Swedes every week. Since September 2018, it has invested in its food and beverage section. In summer 2019, the food and beverage section had grown and took a leading position as one the most visited food and beverage spaces in Sweden.

Founded in Sweden in 2015, Matspar.se is a price comparison service for groceries. Its goal is to help consumers save money on grocery shopping by allowing them to build their shopping lists on the platform and see the pricing of all stores in Sweden.

Online food inspiration with text recipes and videos is now more popular than finding inspiration in cookbooks and magazines. This means there are opportunities to actually sell the recipe ingredients in a seamless and easy way.

Together with a leading fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand in Sweden, we set up a test with Matspar.se in July 2019 where selected recipes from Aftonbladet’s food and beverage section were integrated with Matspar’s online store. We drove readers to inspiring video content and topped it off with a text recipe. This gave consumers a way to shop for the full recipe easily with a few clicks while getting the lowest price on the full purchase. This is consumer power combined with a great service to our readers.

The test was made as an MVP where we integrated space within the recipe with a relevant and clear call-to-action and easy checkout. We empowered consumers to make a purchase decision on the lowest price for the same items available elsewhere.

One of the main obstacles we learned is that Swedish consumers still do not regularly shop for groceries online. We and the FMCG industry need to start looking into how to change this behaviour. With inspiration and easy-purchase possibilities, publishers with relevant content can start contributing to this change in behaviour.

Test results showed a conversion rate of 1.5%, which is a bit under the average e-commerce conversion rates in Europe. However, considering we did a MVP test, we are confident these rates could be increased with a smoother integration and user experience testing. The lesson for other publishers is to start testing and find relevant partners.

In 2020, this type of innovative advertising product will be developed further. It will definitely give FMCG advertisers a proper chance to add a purchase button in their future advertising collaborations with Schibsted and Aftonbladet.

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