KACHARAGADLA

  There’s omnichannel chatter across the retail landscape that has been building for quite some time. But now that 44% of American households are actively buying food both on- and offline, the industry needs to focus more on the consumer and less on the physical channel, according to the "Omnichannel Imperative for Food Retailers Report" by Nielsen and FMI. As online capabilities have grown, the industry has largely concentrated on developing capabilities to facilitate shopping from all angles. The companies that now have those infrastructures in place are well-poised for success. That’s because at the end of 2019, more than 54 million U.S. households had transitioned to true omnichannel shoppers. That’s up 14% from just two years earlier, and it means that it’s time to put the consumer—not the channel—at the center of the equation. It’s possible that some market observers might have — not too long ago — believed that shopping would largely migrate online. Today, that mindset