Online Grocery Shopping is Only Expected to Get Bigger

 

Online Grocery Shopping is Only Expected to Get Bigger

With the many things that technology allows everyone to do, online grocery shopping may be one of the most convenient services you can easily get. Online food delivery services have been around for quite a long time, but it’s just a few years back when you can already shop for groceries while you’re in bed.

A survey got a result that about 37% of shoppers in the US have purchased groceries online in the past year. This means that online grocery stores gained about 35 million more consumers between 2018 and 2019.

Amazon is still at the top when it comes to this business as more than 60% of online grocery shoppers bought their supplies on this site. Walmart is also continuing to gain more customers online, while Target’s online customers doubled in numbers in the past year.

Other online grocery delivery websites like Mercato are also visited by customers who are after specialty products. These include gourmet and organic products that can only be found in specific stores that the site has.

For the remainder of 2019, it is still expected that sales from online groceries would increase to at least 2.7% more. Millennials are more likely to shop online and these are people who are aged 30 to 44 years old.

 Surprisingly, the US market is actually still behind when it comes to shopping online. After all, there is still a percentage of people in the US that would rather take a few minutes of drive to get an item or two from a grocer.

This is also the case for people seeking specialty products. The truth is that the US sales from online shopping reached $23.9 billion, and this is even less than half of how much China and Japan reached last year. These two countries reached sales of $50.9 billion and $31.9 billion respectively. It is only expected that their sales will grow by 2023.

On the other hand, EU countries have both Amazon and Alibaba as the leading platforms to shop for groceries online. About one-third of online grocery shoppers in the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany shop this way at least once a week. 

Back to the trends of how online grocery shoppers are, a survey answered by 1000 adult consumers showed that 24% of its respondents would also have their groceries delivered weekly. 27% of these consumers said that they only order groceries online once a month. There is still a percentage that only does this once a year, and that’s 19%.

The survey also found that 79% of its respondents have online shoppers that shop in more than one grocery store. Only 21% said that they only go to one website or only use one app. Almost half of the 79% who shop in multiple online groceries said that they choose to do so for product variety.

While it seems like a big percentage of consumers in the US are still iffy about grocery shopping online, forecasts would still say that this will still become a bigger industry in the near future. There’s still some convincing that needs to be done, but delivery services are still positive about it.

When it comes to the popular grocery items that people prefer buying online, packaged goods are at the top of the list. These are goods like chips, cereals, or chocolates. In short, these are items that one would stock in a pantry. 

Following pantry items are specialty products or ingredients, beverages, personal care products, fresh produce, meats, fish, and deli, and packed food for special occasions. Although, it’s still safe to say that people prefer going to a land-based market themselves to shop for fresh products.

What consumers are worried about when it comes to buying fresh produce online is whether their orders will still be fresh or will be transported with care. Some are also hesitant about letting someone else pick the fresh produce that they want.

There are still other issues that loom over shopping online that make consumers worried. These are issues like over pricing, product defects, and bad customer service. It’s just possible that people who used to buy goods online suddenly stop doing so because of one bad experience.

When it comes to over pricing, what consumers need to understand is that retailers will sometimes have to increase the price of a product when sold online to cover for extra fees. However, this is sometimes not necessary. There are still items online that are exactly priced like how they would be when shelved in an actual shop.