Impactful merchandising in brick-and-mortar stores is one thing, but the rise of online shopping has totally changed the game in terms of CPG shelf optimization. With more and more consumers doing the bulk of their shopping online, brands looking to stay competitive will need to find creative ways of standing out on crowded digital shelves.
What is digital shelf optimization?
Digital shelf optimization refers to the process of improving how CPG products appear and perform on online retail platforms. In brick-and-mortar stores, CPG brands have the advantage of making in-person impressions on their likely consumers. Online, however, it’s rarely this straightforward. In order to grab the attention of curious online shoppers, CPG brands must carefully consider their product content, search visibility, pricing, promotions, availability and competitive positioning if they’re going to stand out in the crowded ecommerce marketplace.
Why the digital shelf matters for CPG brands
By 2027, experts believe nearly a quarter of all retail purchases will take place online. That means it’s high time for CPG brands to give serious thought to how they will close deals without the advantage of in-person shopping experiences. When a shopper searches for a product online, they wind up with seemingly limitless options. That means it’s more important than ever before for CPG brands to find innovative ways of standing out from the crowd.
Cultivating an impactful online presence has the ability to make or break a CPG brand’s performance and reputation. Even if a shopper merely browses online before making an in-person purchase, a brand’s digital presence can heavily influence their final decision-making process. Brands who fail to invest in their online presence or who rely on outdated digital marketing strategies may negatively impact their performance across multiple channels and effectively curtail their potential for long-term growth.
Digital shelf optimization examples
Digital shelf optimization is more than an umbrella term. It’s an actual process with practical implications and actionable tasks. Some common examples of digital shelf optimization tasks include:
- Updating product titles
- Incorporating SEO keywords into online product descriptions
- Supporting digital listings with high-quality product images and videos
- Implementing responsive pricing strategies based on competitor actions and performance trends
- Investing in high-quality digital marketing assets like websites and social media pages
- Scaling up promotional marketing
- Rolling out customer loyalty programs with tangible membership perks
- Building out product review infrastructure
- Collaborating with social media influencers and online shopper marketing experts to enhance credibility
- Eliminating underperforming SKUs
- Continuously monitoring product availability and removing out-of-stock products for ecommerce listings
CPG brands can use any and all of these tasks to help streamline and optimize their performance while fostering public confidence in their brand. No one wants to visit a brand’s website only to find overly-crowded, laggy webpages with outdated content or low-quality images. Digital shelf optimization tasks can be leveraged across multiple online channels and ecommerce platforms to enhance public brand perception and improve CPG sales in-person and online.
Core elements of digital shelf optimization
If your brand plans to invest in digital shelf optimization in 2026 and beyond, there are a few core elements to keep in mind:
Product content accuracy and consistency
When it comes to digital shelf optimization and online performance in general, it’s wise to focus on quality and not just quantity. Accurate, consistent product content is the foundation of digital shelf performance, as inaccuracies and other lapses in quality can negatively impact brand perception. It’s also important to ensure titles, descriptions, attributes and images are accurate and aligned across multiple retailers and digital sales formats to prevent shopper confusion and ensure consistent brand experiences.
Online visibility
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how great your online presence is if no one can find you or your products. Online visibility requires its own set of investments to ensure consumers can find what they’re looking for – even in crowded spaces. Search rankings, category placement and general search engine optimization can have a major impact on brand and product performance, and brands who fail to recognize their importance could be seriously limiting their growth potential.
Ratings, reviews, and shopper sentiment
Customer testimonials have long been recognized as a core element of effective marketing and growth efforts. Digital platforms offer enhanced opportunities for brands to leverage customer ratings and reviews while cultivating an impactful online presence. Brands with positive product reviews and evidence of consumer confidence can more effectively stand out from the crowd and enhance their credibility across multiple channels.
Pricing and promotional alignment
Today’s savvy shoppers specifically seek out sales and promotions that can help them access the goods they need at prices they can afford. Subsequently, online promotions can play a vital role in a brand’s digital shelf strategy. By ensuring promotions are consistent across all digital platforms and timing promotional offers based on known consumer purchasing patterns, brands can boost sales and attract new consumers. Intentional promotion planning can support more effective F&B revenue management and ensure brands preserve their margins while remaining competitive.
Availability, stock Status and out-of-stock prevention
If your website or ecommerce store is riddled with out-of-stock product listings, you’re likely setting yourself up to make a lot of negative first impressions. Fundamentally, it doesn’t matter how well-crafted or aesthetically pleasing your webpage is – if a product isn’t available, a conversion is not possible. Continuously monitoring inventory and stock status and regularly updating webpages accordingly can help prevent consumer disappointment and increase conversion rates for products that are readily available to your customers.
Competitive benchmarking on the digital shelf
Consumers’ online options are nearly limitless, which means competition is, too. Tracking the performance and trends associated with your closest competitors can serve as the basis for a strong digital shelf optimization approach. Data insights related to competitive benchmarking can help you better understand what’s working for your competitors and what you could improve upon. Competitive benchmarking can inform many of your most vital digital optimization practices, including content strategy, pricing decisions and promotional structures.
How teams track success on the digital shelf
Data is your best friend when it comes to tracking digital performance. Visibility, conversion rates, product availability, customer ratings and promotional performance can all be seamlessly tracked with the right metrics, empowering teams to make more informed, data-backed decisions about their ecommerce strategies. While CPG brands and other retailers once had to rely exclusively on historical data to track their performance, consumer intelligence platforms and other AI-powered tools have made it possible for teams to continuously track consumer behaviors, conversions, inventory and more.
Tastewise data for smarter digital shelf decisions
Tastewise helps CPG brands invest in digital shelf strategies that directly reflect the needs and preferences of real consumers. Tastewise enables CPG teams to track demand, trends and purchasing behaviors in real time so they can implement solutions and strategies that can effectively fill in the gaps in their online performance without compromising their bottom lines. Tastewise data offers keen insight into what consumers actually want and need so they can direct resources to the digital shelf optimization tasks that are most likely to support their long-term growth.
Final thoughts
Digital shelf optimization is a non-negotiable for CPG brands hoping to compete in the crowded digital marketplace. With online shopping becoming an increasingly common fixture in the daily lives of U.S. consumers, CPG brands have a responsibility to ensure their digital offerings are accurate, consistent and effective.
With Tastewise, CPG brands can tailor their digital footprints to more effectively align with the wants and needs of their consumers, rather than relying on outdated historical information. From trending flavors to documented consumer preferences and just about everything in between, Tastewise offers brands the real-time data they need to make informed decisions in the digital age.
FAQs about digital shelf optimization
Data from consumer intelligence platforms can help brands identify which optimization strategies will most effectively appeal to and support their target consumers. Data pertaining to shopper behavior, consumer demand, industry trends and online performance metrics can help CPG brands and marketers curate a consistent, accurate online presence that inspires consumer confidence.
Digital shelf optimization is a team effort that requires the right combination of monitoring, reviewing, editing and fixing. Teams who are just beginning to work on their digital shelf optimization can lean on consumer intelligence platforms and digital marketing experts to help them develop an ecommerce approach that aligns with their goals.
Visibility, search ranking, content accuracy, customer ratings, pricing consistency and inventory availability are some of the most important metrics for CPG brands looking to enhance their digital retail shelf strategy.
