Sales reached $9.3 billion! US grocery e-commerce faces new challenges

With the surge in online shopping, U.S. grocery e-commerce has performed well during the pandemic. However, while performance has climbed, customer satisfaction has declined.

Grocery e-commerce sales totaled $9.3 billion in January

According to the Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey, total U.S. grocery online market sales in January were $9.3 billion, with more than 69.7 million U.S. households placing an average of 2.8 orders across delivery, pickup and home delivery .

Of this, the delivery and pickup segment received $7.1 billion in January 2021, accounting for 77% of all online grocery spending that month.

Total sales increased 15% in January 2021 compared to November 2020, driven primarily by a 16% increase in the number of households shopping online. Among household monthly active users, 78% used delivery or pickup services, up from 64% in November. Home delivery usage fell from 56% to 46% during the same period. Even so, January's overall usage was still below the record 76.7 million households shopping online set in April 2020, when most Americans shopped from home .

Retailers face challenges, satisfaction becomes a key issue

After analyzing the total consumption rate across all three segments (pickup, delivery and home delivery), it was found that the average order value in January 2021 was down nearly 11% from November 2020.

In addition, the overall satisfaction index fell to 56% in January, down more than 32 percentage points from the highest score level in November 2020.

In addition, the report said that the re-entry rate declined in January. Compared with the November level, the share of first-time customers increased by 3 percentage points overall, and in January 2021, this share increased by more than 6 percentage points.

“It’s clear from the data that retailers will face challenges retaining a significant number of online shoppers whose experiences don’t live up to expectations,” said Sylvain Perrier, president and CEO of Mercatus. “ To remain competitive with mass retailers, regional grocers need to enhance the digital shopping experience so as not to give their customers a reason to spend their money elsewhere.”

At the same time, Sylvain Perrier also said that grocers must consider where they can improve operations , how to effectively scale to meet online demand, and which services will be most effective in protecting revenue in the future .

USA

Grocery e-commerce

Satisfaction

Shopping Experience