How One More Customer Login Can Drive Real Growth for Your Grocery Business

Grocery retailers spend millions each year trying to win new customers.  

Splashy promotions. Discount codes. Paid media campaigns. Even ceding control to third-party marketplaces just to get a quick jolt of traffic. 

The thinking behind these tactics seems sound: More customers equal more sales.  

But the data tells a different story. 

We’ve shared before—through our research with Brick Meets Click—that it takes 2.5 to 3.5 new customers to match the value lost when a single long-term customer leaves.  

Yet, many grocers continue to spend on trial-focused offers that generate one-off orders, without delivering any form of measurable retention. 

The result? High acquisition costs and nearly no long-term value. 

Retention is the Best Strategy for Growth 

Meanwhile, the biggest players in eGrocery are taking a very different approach to drive results. 

eGrocery sales in the U.S. have surpassed $9.5 billion in 10 of the last 11 months.

And the leaders behind this growth have anchored their strategies to a well-known retention play: membership plans. 

Walmart, in particular, has leaned into deeply discounted annual subscriptions that offer shoppers a combination of convenience (unified app across online and in-store), savings (massively reduced delivery fees), and reliability (95% first-party service).  

It’s a strategy that’s working: Mass retailers—and Walmart in particular—are now enjoying some of the highest repeat intent rates we’ve seen since COVID. 

The takeaway is clear: Habit beats hype. 

But how can grocers create that type of habit in their customers? 

Sometimes, all it takes is prompting one more session from a customer. 

Engagement Drives Action 

Walmart’s success shows what’s possible when retention becomes the focus.  

But building long-term customer value isn’t just for national chains with massive membership plans, huge marketing budgets, and enormous engineering teams. 

One regional grocer wanted to know if they could unlock similar loyalty by driving more digital engagement from their customers. They partnered with Mercatus to test a deceptively simple hypothesis: The customers who engage more will spend more.  

To find out, the grocer analyzed three months of digital activity across its website and mobile app.  

Shoppers were grouped into three cohorts based on how frequently they engaged each month: 

1. Occasional: 0–1 sessions/month 
2. Threshold: 2–3 sessions/month 
3. Engaged: 4+ sessions/month 

Then, the team benchmarked behavior across key performance indicators, including trips, spend, basket size, and share of total sales. 

What they uncovered set the stage for a strategy pivot from endless trial offers to behavior‑building engagement.  

Why Your Most Engaged Shoppers Are Your Most Valuable 

The customers who engaged more frequently didn’t just spend a little more, they delivered dramatically higher value across every metric.

Over just a single quarter, the differences were striking.  

Despite making up a relatively small segment, engaged users—those logging four or more sessions per month—were responsible for nearly half of all sales.  

These shoppers with their frequent engagements spent 2.6 times more than those who occasionally interacted with the platform.

At the same time, basket size increased steadily alongside engagement, pointing to greater familiarity with the experience and broader product discovery. 

The takeaway? 

Engagement is a true indicator of overall value. And the best opportunity to maximize that value is in nudging more “threshold” shoppers—those engaging just two or three times a month—into the top tier.  

This is how grocers can gain significant incremental revenue, without spending more on acquisition. 

How to Operationalize Digital Engagement 

Turning this insight into action requires more than just better emails or a single, well-timed push notification.  

It takes a platform designed from the ground up to activate, sustain, and optimize customer engagement. 

That’s exactly what DXPro, Mercatus’ new digital experience platform, was built to do. 

DXPro empowers grocers to: 

Identify Threshold Shoppers

Remember that not all shoppers are equal.  

Use DXPro to identify customers sitting at the engagement tipping point—2–3 sessions per month—and target them with precision.  

These threshold shoppers have shown more interest than occasional users but haven’t yet crossed into the most valuable tier. With the right nudge, they can deliver outsized gains in trips, spend, and loyalty. 

Segment by Behavior and Value 

Go beyond basic demographics—age, household size, location, etc.—to group customers based on these important engagement signals with DXPro’s embedded customer data platform. 

Automate High-impact Nudges 

Once your threshold shoppers have been identified and segmented, DXPro allows you to trigger personalized offers, replenishment reminders, and relevant content automatically. 

Prove the ROI of Engagement

Tie every action back to trips, clips, and incremental sales with reporting that connects engagement to real revenue impact.  

Use DXPro’s performance dashboards and ROI tracking to watch and learn as customers mature and migrate from one engagement cohort to the next.  

More Engagement. More Data. More Growth 

Every engagement feeds smarter targeting, creating a flywheel effect. 

The more your shoppers engage, the more relevant their experience becomes, and the more likely they are to come back and spend more. 

This isn’t just a one-off campaign boost. DXPro makes sustained, scalable growth possible. 

Level the Playing Field with DXPro 

In short, DXPro helps retain customers and build the habits that makes a grocery business profitable. 

It gives grocers the advantages that the biggest players in eGrocery have already mastered. 

Walmart has used its scale, data infrastructure, and marketing power to build habit through three key levers: 

• Discounted memberships that keep shoppers coming back through perceived and real savings 
• Full ownership of first-party data, which allows for more precise targeting and monetization 
• Relentless personalization across channels, ensuring relevance at every interaction 

All these levers are meant to drive engagement because—as we’ve seen—engagement translates directly into repeat purchases, bigger baskets, and higher lifetime value. 

Historically, regional grocers haven’t had access to the tools to do the same.  

But now they do. 

With DXPro, grocers are finally able to match the engagement-driven retention strategies big-box retailers are using without their enormous IT budgets.  

DXPro provides grocers with: 

First-party Data Ownership 

Keep customer insights and CPG media dollars in your own ecosystem, and stop lending them out to third-party marketplaces. 

AI-powered Personalization 

Leverage a built-in customer data platform to automate highly targeted, high-impact engagement at scale. 

Unified App and Web Experience 

Deliver a consistent, branded journey across channels that brings digital value to every trip, whether online or in-store. 

Turn Insight into Growth—with Just One More Login 

If you want to drive the kind of revenue growth that comes from high-value, high-frequency shoppers, take a closer look at your own data. 

Step 1: Audit your engagement metrics 

Look at session frequency versus spend. Identify how engagement tracks with customer value. 

Step 2: Segment your “threshold” shoppers 

Focus on customers logging two to three sessions per month. These shoppers are your best opportunity for the greatest lift. 

Step 3: Map personalized nudges 

What timely offer, relevant reminder, or important product recommendation will earn just one more engagement from them? 

Step 4: Book a strategy session with Mercatus 

We’ll show you how DXPro identifies high-potential shoppers, automates personalized engagement, and ties it all back to trips, clips, and sales. 

Ready to activate habit-building engagement? Prompt one more session from your threshold shoppers and grow your grocery business with DXPro. Schedule your strategy session today.