1. Digital transformation gets real

Remember when digital transformation was merely a hot topic in the industry? Now it’s finally happening.

Grocers are making major moves to upgrade their core technology, especially ERP and WMS systems. They’re getting serious about food tracking too, implementing specialized solutions that help manage products made in their facilities. It’s all about staying ahead of FSMA 204 requirements while making recall management more efficient.

2. Traceability takes center stage

Here’s something interesting: amid rising food safety concerns and recent high-profile recalls, major retailers like Walmart, Target and Albertsons aren’t just following the FDA’s traceability rules. They’re going way beyond them. By tracking everything rather than just required items, they’re building stronger safety nets for recalls and staying ready for any future regulatory changes.

3. Private label growth plateaus

The numbers tell an intriguing story about private label products. Sales jumped to $217 billion in 2023, a 6% increase. But unit sales? They only grew by 0.9%. This gap is pushing retailers to rethink how they market and price their store brands.

For grocery suppliers, this trend suggests increased opportunities as grocers may need to expand their supplier networks to balance their private label and name-brand offerings. This could accelerate the pace of supplier onboarding as grocers adjust their product mix.

4. Local sourcing feeds sustainable growth

Sustainability and local sourcing are becoming must-haves, not just nice-to-haves. Despite inflation worries, consumers will pay almost 10% more for sustainable products, while over 75% actively seek local goods.

For example, ALDI has made local produce a cornerstone of their offering. Leading grocers are following suit, strengthening local supplier relationships while monitoring emissions and embracing sustainable practices.

5. Automation gets practical

AI is generating lots of buzz, but let’s look at what’s actually working. When grocers have accurate, standardized data flowing through their systems, they can use AI tools effectively. Leading grocers are turning inventory records into smarter forecasts and automating reorder decisions to reduce waste. The foundation isn’t fancy algorithms. It’s reliable data that grocers can act on with confidence.

6. Privacy considerations emerge

Innovation comes with new challenges. As grocers explore digital price tags and automated personalization, they face growing scrutiny over consumer privacy and pricing transparency. The rapid adoption of technologies like facial recognition has created a complex landscape of state biometric privacy laws and consumer protection concerns.

7. Data sharing drives collaboration

Success in the grocery industry isn’t just about what happens inside your four walls anymore. It’s about how well you share and act on information across your entire supply chain. When retailers share forecasts, promotional calendars and sell-through data, suppliers can respond with production schedules, accurate inventory levels and shipping updates. Better data sharing means better everything, from inventory management to promotional planning.

These trends point to a more connected, efficient and sustainable grocery industry. That’s what 2025 looks like: smarter systems, stronger partnerships and practices that serve both the bottom line and the broader community.

Want to stay ahead of these trends? Talk with our grocery experts today.

Beyond traditional seasonal peaks

While cornerstone holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas continue to drive major shopping patterns, today’s grocery landscape is evolving. The familiar rhythm of turkey and stuffing in November, or corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day, now shares the calendar with hundreds of micro-seasonal opportunities that reflect our changing relationship with food and community.

The rise of micro-seasons

Unlike the fashion industry’s micro-seasons, which are primarily driven by design trends, grocery micro-seasons tap into consumers’ emotional connection to food and shared experiences. Take Whole Foods’ embrace of #Veganuary. What began as a social media trend has become a full-fledged shopping season, complete with plant-based product launches and cooking demonstrations.

These micro-seasons aren’t just marketing inventions. They reflect how we live and celebrate today. National Ice Cream Day becomes a summer highlight on Instagram, while National Pizza Day turns a regular Friday into a reason for family gathering. Even Dry January has evolved from a post-holiday health kick into a significant retail opportunity for non-alcoholic beverages and wellness products.

What’s driving the change?

Several factors fuel this transformation:

• Social media influence: The #foodie culture has turned every meal into a potential celebration.
• Cultural diversity: Growing multicultural communities bring new traditions and food holidays to mainstream retail.
• FOMO: Social media creates awareness and excitement around food trends.
• Comfort seeking: In uncertain times, food holidays offer something to look forward to and celebrate.
• Exploration: Consumers increasingly seek new flavors and cooking experiences.

Impact on grocery operations

This micro-seasonal transformation requires retailers to fundamentally rethink their operations and supplier relationships. Traditional seasonal planning no longer suffices when consumers expect everything from heart-shaped chocolates to pumpkin spice products earlier each year. Success now depends on maintaining an ever-expanding product assortment while timing each micro-seasonal launch perfectly.

Must-haves in this new landscape include:

• Real-time data sharing with suppliers to anticipate and meet emerging trends
• Agile supplier partnerships that enable same-season response
• Streamlined processes to set up and launch new products quickly
• Strategic inventory optimization across micro-seasonal peaks

The heart of celebration

At its core, this evolution in grocery retail reflects our changing relationship with food and celebration. Success means more than just stocking shelves with products consumers want. It requires the right mix of cultural awareness, technological capabilities and strong supplier partnerships to turn food holidays into an opportunity for connection and growth.
Ready to strengthen supplier collaboration and stay ahead of the micro-seasonal calendar? Partner with a team that equips you with the insights, tools and support to make every season a success.

Managing supplier relationships remains one of the biggest challenges in retail. Even with sophisticated supply chain technology, many organizations struggle with fundamental supplier performance issues: inaccurate shipments, inconsistent fill rates and chronic delivery delays.

Recent industry research reveals the scope of these challenges, with over 80% of businesses reporting ongoing issues with shipment accuracy and more than two-thirds facing persistent problems with late deliveries.

Among the various tools available for improving supplier relationships, supplier scorecarding stands out as a common approach. But traditionally, supplier scorecarding brings to mind penalties imposed by retailers or grocers onto their supplier community. Scorecards are often associated with chargebacks for noncompliance in areas such as late shipments, incomplete shipments or even improperly placed shipping labels.

Of course, compliance is an important part of managing supplier performance, but it’s more important to consider the strategic purpose of a supplier scorecard. A scorecarding effort with insightful supplier metrics can help both the retailer and its suppliers perform better, together.

Using supplier scorecards to drive positive change

Scorecards can foster collaboration that helps all trading partners make positive changes in their supply chain performance instead of being used as a punitive measure.

For example, if a retailer wants to improve supplier metrics such as fill rate (or the amount of product shipped as a percentage of the total order), they can work collaboratively with suppliers to make improvements. This can involve activities such as making sure suppliers acknowledge orders and communicate any changes in what they plan to ship versus the original order.

By doing so, the retailer knows what to expect from suppliers and can send additional purchase orders at a later date for the remaining quantity.

Supplier scorecarding has significant benefits for suppliers as well. If suppliers have ready access to tangible metrics on performance, they gain more insight into what to improve.

For example, SPS Commerce worked with a supplier who was not consistently sending required advance ship notices (ASNs) to a retail customer. As a result, the supplier’s product got stuck on the receiving dock and was delayed getting onto store shelves, causing both the retailer and the supplier to lose sales. For reasons like this, SPS sees suppliers create their own scorecards to show retailers their performance and discuss what’s going well and what changes are needed to improve their supplier metrics.

Go beyond scorecarding to improve supplier performance

When retailers and suppliers work together to improve performance metrics, the financial results can be substantial. Research shows that companies who improve their supplier OTIF (on-time in-full) rates by just five percentage points can see dramatic revenue gains. For a $5B organization, this seemingly small improvement could generate an additional $158M in revenue.

The impact extends beyond just delivery metrics. Organizations that systematically track and improve supplier performance can see sales increases of up to 10% and margin improvements of up to 12%. When products arrive on time and orders are filled completely, retailers can maximize sales opportunities while keeping operations efficient.

Starting a conversation around supplier scorecarding isn’t always easy. Full-service providers like SPS Commerce not only provide a supplier scorecarding solution but also an expert team that can help retailers and suppliers interpret the information and formulate a plan to collaboratively improve supply chain performance.

Take the first step toward better supplier collaboration. Schedule a consultation with our team to explore your options.

Here are five additional EDI supplier selection strategies to use for finding, vetting, and working with the right technology partner for your business.

1: Begin with understanding essential vendor selection criteria “service” definitions

Is EDI a core competency of your business? Do you want it to be?

If taking on the task of learning how to run and manage EDI isn’t part of your or your team’s career goals, know that the term ‘managed EDI service’ is a cloud-based solution term which means you do all the leg work to implement, manage and oversee it.

The EDI provider is only responsible for developing and maintaining the core technology. Your internal staff is accountable for the day-to-day customization, optimization, and operations of the technology. This generally means additional headcount for you.

Full-service EDI solutions have seven primary components:

• Technology
• Trading partner expertise
• Design and configuration
• Trading partner communication
• Testing and launch
• Proactive monitoring and analysis
• Ongoing resource access

With a full-service model, you get the cloud-based solution and related staff resources that customize, optimize, and run the technology on your behalf. In short, the provider carries out a complete business function on your behalf.

2: Utilize user reviews in your evaluation process

Get narrow on your vendor selection criteria. Include customer satisfaction and reviews. Go online and check out their customer reviews on technology review sites such as G2, Capterra or, TrustRadius.

Search for “EDI Provider” and your industry to reduce your list. From there, filter the results to weed out old reviews and only focus on recent reviews. Narrow to EDI providers that have 4 to 5-star reviews.

This should make it easier to find a handful of EDI providers, vendors, and suppliers to explore.

3: Come prepared for the conversation and ask for references

There are ways to establish which vendor likely has what it takes to bring your expectations to life. Create a list of pre-qualifying questions as part of your EDI supplier selection criteria to give you granular-level clarity on this technology partner.

Don’t be afraid to ask for references from existing customers to confirm your potential technology candidate did deliver on all aspects of implementation satisfaction.

Pre-arm yourself by asking the right questions up front and avoid hidden surprises in the negation stage.

4: Certify the automation capabilities of your potential technology vendor

Do you know exactly what needs to automate with the technologies you already have? Will the solution you are exploring automate seamlessly with your ERP, OMS, WMS, or other business integrations?

The right partner should be able to set your business up for friction-free, scalable evolution with fully automated EDI––no matter what existing applications you use and make them flawlessly compliant.

Regardless of whom you select, you must discuss everything of importance up front and in detail and, of course, at critical points along the journey.

Bottom line, getting this vendor selection criteria right before committing to any EDI solution will allow you to offload many operational and technical details that are part of managing an EDI function, and support your business for years to come.

SPS Commerce has helped retailers and suppliers of all sizes in enabling their first EDI system, To learn more about what to look for in a prospective EDI provider, download our free white paper. Or for a free “no-hassle” demonstration, speak to one of our EDI specialists.