With E-Com Sales Nearly Doubling, PepsiCo to Get Granular

In reporting a positive third quarter with organic revenue growth of 4.2%, PepsiCo confirmed the company will continue to invest in its digital initiatives to grow and scale its burgeoning e-commerce business.

Its e-commerce segment nearly doubled during the quarter, said Ramon Laguarta, chairman and CEO, who noted that key company priorities include investing in data analytics for more granularity around consumer insights.

The company launched two direct-to-consumer sites in the spring — PantryShop.com and Snacks.com — as “an attempt for us to stay closer to the consumer, read them, understand reaction to early innovation, and then obviously take mainstream into the balance of the channels,” Laguarta said in an earnings call.

And while the category represents a small percent of overall sales for the No. 3 consumer goods company, the insights received are deemed very valuable and will inform strategies moving forward.

“We plan to obviously scale them up a little bit, and get better at reading consumers early, test and learning with our innovation, and also improving the way we segment consumers,” Laguarta noted. “We have prototypes of consumers that we can innovate and talk to in our communication.”

In addition to enabling testing and learning from consumers, selling direct-to-consumer also lets the company increase exposure for some of its niche brands, Gibu Thomas, PepsiCo senior VP and head of e-commerce, told CGT in May.