Dive Brief:

• Peapod has launched a new “Chat-to-Cart” service that lets customers text their orders to the online grocer, according to a company release. Shoppers use the texting feature on their phone, and can use voice-to-text and even emojis to build their lists.
• The new functionality, which Peapod created in partnership with technology firm StorePower, can also be shared and updated across family members.
• “Now, instead of texting a family member to pick up an extra gallon of milk, you can text Peapod and let us do the work,” Cat De Merode, Peapod's vice president of product said in the release. “The texting functionality complements the Peapod mobile app and desktop website for one seamless ordering process."

Dive Insight:

Peapod is making sure its online grocery platform is plugged into the latest technology and trends. Its new texting feature follows the launch this summer of voice ordering through Amazon’s Alexa device.

The pioneering e-commerce company, which is owned by Ahold Delhaize, hopes to keep pace with the competition — and in some cases move out ahead. Walmart recently partnered with Google Home to offer voice-activated ordering, while Amazon sees lots of orders come through Alexa each day, and stands to make grocery ordering even more frictionless as it evolves in the channel.

Fast-growing e-commerce services like Instacart and Shipt, which directly compete with Peapod and have both rapidly increased their market penetration this year, don’t yet offer voice or text ordering. This could be a nice differentiator for Peapod, particularly with tech-focused millennial shoppers.

Innovations that make online ordering easier and more engaging are helping drive adoption of grocery e-commerce, according to a recent report by Packaged Facts. The research firm predicts online grocery sales will accelerate in the coming years, going from compound yearly growth of around 19% to CAGR of more than 27%. By 2022, online sales could total as much as $42 billion annually.

Peapod will certainly hope its innovations can draw new customers and inspire bigger orders. In Ahold Delhaize’s most recent financial quarter, Peapod’s sales only grew in the single digits while the company’s overall e-commerce channel grew 20%.