Jennifer Silverberg | Source | CEO at SmartCommerce

“Tupperware – probably for the best of reasons, attempting to protect their loyal sellers – was absurdly late to the e-commerce game,” says Jennifer Silverberg, chief executive officer of SmartCommerce, a martech platform.

Plus, she points out that the company’s website is outdated and offers consumers a lackluster experience. “The site they have today is simply a ‘catalog’ view of their products, without any supporting lifestyle content or reasons for buying.”

Silverberg observes that Tupperware’s bankruptcy filing indicates a “lack of experience in the e-commerce space.”

In its court filing, the company notes that when a customer searches for ’Tupperware’ on Amazon, the site “return[s] results for other brands, undercutting the Company’s strategic purpose for selling on Amazon.”

This attitude in itself represents a shallow understanding of the landscape, Silverberg suggests. “Any e-commerce marketer knows this is simply how Amazon works,” she says.

Silverberg, meanwhile, makes a different suggestion. She believes that Tupperware could dominate the growing social commerce space and tap into the hype that has fueled the success of brands like Stanley.

One thing the brand has going for it, both Peters and Silverberg agree, is longstanding, hard-earned brand equity, which can go a long way in helping it compete.

In the end, Silverberg is betting on a comeback: “I’ll bet there are some great marketing leaders out there salivating at the opportunity to help Tupperware turn a corner – and if they hire a great one, my money would be on us reading their comeback story in the coming year.”

“Just a couple of years ago, we were getting a lot of interest in what I would call novelty – ‘I will try this new thing.’ When we dug into that, it was about wanting to try something new because you had spent a year with the same people and same four walls during COVID. Now, I’m going to call it a return to the familiar. It seems people want something they can count on and want the things they know, the people they know and the experience they had before,” said SmartCommerce CEO Jennifer Silverberg in a recent interview with Progressive Grocer.

This is likely a reflection of the trend that’s happening in grocery overall: a shift away from the “weekly stock-up” behavior to a more on-demand approach, with more frequent pickups and deliveries, said Jennifer Silverberg, CEO of SmartCommerce.

“This shift is getting consumers more used to smaller pack sizes, single-serve drinks, etcetera,” she added.