• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

U.S. Online Grocery Sales Hit $9.3 Billion in January

by Chris Albrecht
February 22, 2021February 22, 2021Filed under:
  • Data Insights
  • Delivery & Commerce
  • Future of Grocery
  • Grocery
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Total grocery e-commerce sales in the U.S. hit $9.3 billion this past January, with nearly 70 million households placing an average of 2.8 orders across delivery, pickup and ship-to-home categories, according to a new Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey.

January’s $9.3 billion in sales is up 15 percent over November 2020, and Brick Meets Click credits a large part of this growth to a 16 percent increase in the number of households that buy groceries online.

Among the survey’s findings:

  • Seventy-seven percent of all online grocery spending went to delivery and pickup.
  • Seventy-eight percent of households engaged with a delivery or pickup service (up from 64 percent in November).
  • Ship-to-home usage rate dropped from 56 percent to 46 percent during the same period.
  • Despite growth in other areas, the overall usage rate in January fell short of the record 76.7 million households that shopped online in April 2020 (at the height of the pandemic’s first wave).

Pickup and delivery’s share of orders grew roughly six percent from November, accounting for 66 percent of all online orders completed during January 2021.

While online grocery saw a lot of gains over the past few months, the overall satisfaction metric (the likelihood of using a specific service again) with online grocery dropped to 56 percent, down 32 percentage point from the record high ratings level in November. Pickup had the biggest drop, losing 35 percentage points.

“Even though many grocers remain capacity constrained – especially with pickup – others are growing market share as they staff up or expand pickup to a larger store base,” David Bishop, partner, Brick Meets Click said in today’s press announcement. “While throwing more labor at the issue isn’t ideal, this, along with improving assembling productivities via enhanced pick and pack practices, is vital to remaining competitive in the near term and not inadvertently giving your customer a reason to shop elsewhere.”

As a grocery industry watcher, it’s always fun when these types of market numbers come out to see if and how people are adopting online grocery. But these numbers are also important because grocer retailers are currently investing a lot of money in systems and infrastructure to fulfill online grocery orders. Ahold Delhaize and Walmart recently announced expanded automated fulfillment centers for their stores, and Kroger will start opening its automated customer fulfillment centers this year.

As vaccines arrive and the pandemic recedes (knocks on wood), the question will be how much people’s habits have changed thanks to COVID, and for how many online grocery shopping will become the new normal.


Related

Get the Spoon in your inbox

Just enter your email and we’ll take care of the rest:

Find us on some of these other platforms:

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Spotify
Tagged:
  • Brick Meets Click
  • grocery
  • online grocery
  • stats

Post navigation

Previous Post WSJ: Restaurant Tech Company Toast Planning an IPO
Next Post Foxtrot Market Raises $42 Million for Its Corner Store and One-Hour Delivery

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Get The Spoon in Your Inbox

The Spoon Podcast Network!

Feed your mind! Subscribe to one of our podcasts!

A Week in Rome: Conclaves, Coffee, and Reflections on the Ethics of AI in Our Food System
How ReShape is Using AI to Accelerate Biotech Research
How Eva Goulbourne Turned Her ‘Party Trick’ Into a Career Building Sustainable Food Systems
Combustion Acquires Recipe App Crouton
Next-Gen Fridge Startup Tomorrow Shuts Down

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.