Report: Online Grocery Market Grows 15%
Online grocery sales have grown more than 15% on a year-over-year basis and now account for 6.3% of total grocery-related spending by households in the U.S., according to a new report.
Retail insights firm Brick Meets Click just released an analysis on the state of the U.S. online grocery market.
According to the analysis, several factors are driving the growth of the U.S. online grocery market in 2019:
- Household penetration, based on past-month shopping activity, has risen more than five percentage points over the last year to nearly 25% of all U.S. households. This gain is largely the result of aggressive expansion of home delivery and pickup services available at brick-and-mortar stores, which collectively are now accessible to 90% of all the households in the US – up from 81% in 2018.
- Average order values, encompassing ship-to-home, home delivery, and pickup orders, have climbed over 6% to $70 in 2019. When only analyzing home delivery and pickup orders across various retail trade channels, the average order value grew 13% to just over $100.
- Online purchase frequency for groceries remains relatively unchanged versus last year, averaging two orders during the past month for active online grocery customers. Ship-to-home orders account for 50% of all online grocery orders while pickup captures 28% and home delivery 22% of the orders respectively.
“There’s still a fair amount of purchase trial - occurring as consumers search for acceptable online shopping alternatives,” said David Bishop, partner at Brick Meets Click. “For example, we found that approximately one-third of the active households’ most recent online order was the first time they used the service.”
According to the analysis, online providers are improving the shopping experience as the likelihood to use a specific service again jumped from 69% in 2018 to 81% this year. Improving the ability to find the products that a customer wants to purchase is a key factor and the percentage of customers who found everything they wanted to buy rose to 90% in 2019, a 12 percentage points gain versus last year.
Barrington, Ill.-based Brick Meets Click aims to deliver strategic insight and guidance that retailers, suppliers and technology providers need to drive growth by meeting shopper needs in an omnichannel environment.
