More Consumers Ordering Groceries Online: Report
As grocers vie to offer the greatest convenience in online ordering, including same-day delivery and click-and-collect services that don’t even require shoppers to leave their cars when they pick up their orders, more consumers are taking advantage of such programs. The percentage of U.S. consumers, age 18 and older, who shopped online for groceries within a 30-day period, whether for delivery or pickup at a store, grew from 17 percent in the quarter ending November 2018 to 20 percent, or about 51 million consumers, in the quarter ending February 2019, according to a report by The NPD Group.
NPD’s National Eating Trends Omnichannel Scorecard found that of those who shop online for groceries from brick-and-mortar or pure-play online grocers, 16 percent order their food and beverages for delivery, while click-and-collect is preferred by 11 percent of online grocery shoppers, and 7 percent of these shoppers do both.
Delivery was the shopping method of choice for 16 percent of consumers who order groceries online, with this behavior most developed among urban consumers, while suburbanites came in second and country dwellers third. Click-and-collect proved most popular among adults age 18-44, households with kids, and urban shoppers, who displayed a higher rate for this behavior than other shoppers overall, while suburban shoppers showed an average rate, and rural households were underdeveloped in this area.
“Digital purchasing will accelerate in food retailing, just as it has in other retail sectors where we see much higher rates of online purchases,” noted David Portalatin, food industry advisor at Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD, and author of “Eating Patterns in America.” “Still, the brick-and-mortar grocery store will always be a necessary means of acquiring foods, especially those where consumers place a premium on their sensory assessment to ensure quality, like meats, fruits and vegetables. This gives forward-thinking retailers and their vendor partners an opportunity to truly create an omnichannel experience for the consumer and revolutionize the way we think about grocery merchandising.”
