US Online Grocery Sales Hit Record $7.2 Billion In June (techcrunch.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Despite the slow reopening of the U.S. economy over the past several weeks, online grocery shopping is continuing to reach ever-higher numbers as Americans seem to be in no rush to return to the store. According to new research released today by Brick Meets Click and Mercatus, U.S. online grocery sales hit a record $7.2 billion in June, up 9% over May, as 45.6 million households turned to online grocery pickup and delivery services for a larger portion of their grocery needs. This figure is higher than the $4 billion seen in March 2020, when the U.S. first went under coronavirus lockdowns. Since then, online grocery sales have been growing quickly -- jumping to $5.3 billion in April, then $6.6 billion in May, as more consumers shifted their shopping to online services, grocery included. The customer base for online grocery also grew from 39.5 million monthly actives in March to now 45.6 million as of June, the report found. Remarkably, only 16.1 million customers were using online grocery as of August 2019, totaling then just $1.2 million in sales. The growth can be attributed to a large influx of new online grocery customers, as well as more frequent orders.
"In addition, more retailers, including independents, have added capacity for online order fulfillment amid the coronavirus pandemic to meet consumers' changing needs," the report adds. "This has also resulted in an increase in sales as more customers are able to shop online and get a time slot for delivery or pickup."
"In addition, more retailers, including independents, have added capacity for online order fulfillment amid the coronavirus pandemic to meet consumers' changing needs," the report adds. "This has also resulted in an increase in sales as more customers are able to shop online and get a time slot for delivery or pickup."
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Please don't eat vegetables.
Please don't eat.
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I don't trust any of those services. The store is out of Parmesan cheese so how about a box of baking soda as a substitute? I do however buy meat from a local restaurant supplier that started doing home deliveries. Wagyu hamburgers are incredible and they also have more exotic things like lamb sausage and pheasant bratwurst. Going to marinate a pound of gulf shrimp and grill them for dinner tonight!
Re:I use Walmart's pickup service (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. Last year, I had a foot surgery and was stuck at home for 7 months. Live alone, so online groceries was my only option.
Usually, I shop at Costco, but I quickly found out that next to none of the things I get at my local Costco is available online, or using their app. I then tried Safeway, and they too don't have all the things that I find in store. Not just that: I found out that their delivery comes from particular Safeways some 20-30 miles away, despite there being a Safeway within 5 miles from where I live.
Once I could resume driving, I was thrilled to be back in the stores and shop normally. Not just b'cos I could resume going out, but also b'cos I could actually get what I wanted. During the earlier part of the lockdown this year, I continued to do my groceries whenever I ran out by just going to the store as needed, and not ordering online
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Err...where do you live?
At the New Orleans Costco, you can get damned near everything you want.
Have you gotten on the Costco site, and scrolled to the bottom, where it has "Locatons and Services"...at the bottom there, click the Grocery by Instacart [costco.com]. link.
(I usually log in to the Costco site first)
Anyway...THAT is where you get access to most every grocery item they have in s
Most services let you pick what will and won't (Score:2)
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That's a pretty big "downside". We were at a friend's house one time when their grocery delivery arrived, pink tomatoes, green bananas, tasteless papaya (they had already learned not to buy meat for delivery). We like good food, which requires good ingredients. If we can't pick them out ourselves the quality of the dinner suffers, which isn't acceptable. As much as I truly loathe grocery shopping the payback makes it worth it.
Small average sales of 7 cents per customer (Score:2)
"16.1 million customers were using online grocery as of August 2019, totaling then just $1.2 million in sales."
So an average of 7 cents worth of groceries ordered per customer? Something doesn't smell right about these numbers.
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They like to count "active users," even the ones that just put things in the cart and abandon it. It's a way of not lying, but pretending your offerings are gaining traction and raising share prices.
Re:Small average sales of 7 cents per customer (Score:5, Informative)
"16.1 million customers were using online grocery as of August 2019, totaling then just $1.2 million in sales."
So an average of 7 cents worth of groceries ordered per customer? Something doesn't smell right about these numbers.
It's a typo and should be "billion".
In the table in the article they give it as "$1.2 B"
Grocery shopping is way stressful now (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it is mostly driven by COVID because you need to keep your distance, and it makes stopping to look for the best product much harder, because you don't want to block the other guy from shopping, because they have to stay over 6 feed away from you. So you have to go to the store with a list, pick what you need and get out and move. Plus you need to avoid people who don't feel that they should be smarter with their shopping and need to stand back over 6 feet while they judge which package of frozen pizza they want to get.
It makes shopping very stressful, so online grocery is much more helpful. However most places have the To-Go version, where staff picks up the stuff and delivers it to your car. This actually makes it worse for the people in the store, as you have staff wondering the store with larger carts, to find and pick up items. So they are blocking your travel as well.
I am unsure though how long the popularity of online grocery stores will last, once COVID finally clears up. There can be a lot of people working from home, who every weekend are itching to get out to drive somewhere even to the grocery store.
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Yes it is mostly driven by COVID because you need to keep your distance, and it makes stopping to look for the best product much harder, because you don't want to block the other guy from shopping, because they have to stay over 6 feed away from you.
Since the mask mandate, people in my area have stopped the 6' distancing, and they're all talking again. I liked it better when people stayed apart and nobody talked.
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You must live in a Stupid area of the United States.
It isn't Masked or a 6 foot difference. It is Masked and a 6 foot distance. I once got yelled at by a cashier while I had a mask on while unloading my product onto the checkout belt I bent over and breached the 6 foot bubble by mistake, mostly because I was paying attention to putting my food on the belt, and the other guy walked back to pay.
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Huh? Most people are creatures of habit, and once they know which things they want, they typically know where to get it. What you're describing makes sense in the vegetable section, if you're trying to determine the freshness of a fruit before putting it into the bag. But otherwise, elsewhere in the store, it's just a question of picking up the Kellogg's box or the bag of chips or the ice cream tub and putting it in your cart.
My local Safeway normally has only a handful of customers: I've rarely found
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Grocery shopping is stressful right now, because everything is stressful right now. But what're you going to do, go to a restaurant instead (assuming they're still even open in your state)? That would be even more stressful.
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I would agree with you.
However grocery shopping is one of the more stressful activities that you mostly have to do. Or at least one person in your household has to do.
Other things, like movies, hardware store, clothing shopping... Are things we can put off, without huge consequences.
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Grocery shopping has always been stressful for me, because I hate shopping in general. But pre-pandemic I stuck to it because I didn't trust anyone to pick out my produce. But with the pandemic, I have all my groceries delivered. And I've found that other people are just as good as picking out produce as I was.
I may never set foot in a store again. Fine by me.
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you need to avoid people who don't feel that they should be smarter with their shopping and need to stand back over 6 feet while they judge which package of frozen pizza they want to get.
This is why the expert move is to shop at night before the close or in the morning just after they open. This makes shopping much easier as there are very few people there.
Interesting, will it continue? (Score:2)
One thing COVID did do is force people to stop, get a grip and slow down for the first time in years. You still have plenty of people trying to live their #bestlife and posting all over social media about hustle and all the crazy things they're doing instead of relaxing. But, I have noticed with myself and others that some people have figured out that all the running around was just a byproduct of yet another economic bubble. It happened in the coke-fueled late 80s, the dotcom bubble late 90s, the real esta
Corona virus, convenience (Score:1)
Good (Score:1)
US online shopping (Score:1)