In April, online grocery sales in the U.S. increased year-over-year, according to the monthly Brick Meets Click and Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey.
David Bishop, partner at Brick Meets Click, noted that delivery sales are benefiting from interest and investment in third-party providers and Walmart. He raised a question about whether new customers, attracted by trial offers, will behave like streaming service users—switching services once the free period ends to take advantage of the next special offer.
Mark Fairhurst, chief growth officer at Mercatus, emphasized the need for grocery executives to invest in technology that improves the shopping experience both online and in-store. He highlighted that mass merchants like Walmart and Target have heavily invested in their mobile apps and are now using emerging technologies such as machine learning and AI to better understand and adapt to customer behavior in real time.
The survey indicated that more online grocery shoppers are turning to mass merchants to save costs and benefit from membership and subscription programs.
Breakdown of Online Grocery Sales Methods
Brick Meets Click and Mercatus categorize online grocery sales into three fulfillment methods:
Delivery: Orders fulfilled by first- or third-party providers like Instacart, Shipt, or the retailer’s employees.
Pickup: Orders collected by customers inside or outside the store or from a designated location/locker.
Ship-to-home: Orders delivered via carriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.
In April 2024, U.S. online grocery sales reached $8.5 billion, a 4.4% increase from $8.2 billion in 2023.
Pickup Sales: Accounted for $3.7 billion, a 2.1% increase from $3.6 billion in April 2023. The growth was attributed to an increase in average order value (AOV), despite a drop in order volume and monthly active users.
Delivery Sales: Reached $3.3 billion, a 4.3% increase from $3.1 billion in April 2023. An increase in monthly active users across all age groups helped boost order volume, while AOV remained unchanged.
Ship-to-home Sales: Although the smallest segment, it saw the largest growth at 10.2%, increasing to $1.6 billion from $1.4 billion in 2023. This growth was attributed to a significant year-over-year increase in AOV.
Influence of Mass Merchants
Mass merchants fulfilled orders for 51% of monthly active online grocery shoppers. The proportion of shoppers who order online from supermarkets and discount stores and also from mass merchants increased to nearly 34%. For households primarily buying groceries from mass merchants and ordering online, 83% completed one or more online orders with their primary grocer in April 2024. In contrast, 54% of households that primarily shop at supermarkets also ordered groceries online from a supermarket.
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