The spike of online grocery sales about 40% this year

In the United States alone, according to research by Coresight Research U.S online grocery survey, sales grew by 22% in 2019. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown and high demand, it is estimated that a growth of 40% will be reached by 2020.

According to a poll conducted in the US, about 52% bought groceries from online stores in the past year. This is a huge increase from the previous figures. With just the contribution of online grocery sales, the e-commerce revenue from food and beverage retail sales in 2020 is estimated to reach 3.5% as compared to 2.6% in 2019.

The pandemic and its role

The pandemic pushed people into a buying spree, and more sales were achieved through online grocery shopping. Stockpiling became the need of the hour for many due to the uncertain situation posed by the Coronavirus and it is estimated that the future 12 months hold bigger opportunities for online grocery shopping as we are still grappling with the reality of Coronavirus.

A recent study showed that half of the online grocery shoppers have made this decision as a result of this Pandemic.

The past couple of years has doubled the rate of online grocery shopping and in the coming 12 months, it is definitely going to skyrocket as more people are preferring to shop by maintaining the norms of social distancing.

Some statistics on online grocery shopping

Statistics show that the percentage of online grocery shoppers was 23.1%, 36.8% and 52% in 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively and the percentage of people expected to buy from online grocery shopping were 25.8%, 39.5% and 62.5% in 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively with a growth of about 10 .5 % in expected buyers in 2020.

Irrespective of the product categories the online grocery shopping figures have soared when compared to the previous year.

The buying trend is also not just confined to a particular set of retailers as figures indicate that consumers are purchasing from an average of 2.3 retailers online in the past 12 months as compared to 1.8 retailers last year. Therefore, this indicates that consumers have not settled for a favorite retailer online and there is a lot of space for any retailer who is looking out to break even

This can be further proved by the fact that even though Amazon lead the way and top the numbers of online grocery shoppers their growth of percentage in shoppers was only 0.1% in the past year whereas players like Walmart, Target, Costco, whole foods, Aldi and Ahold Delhaize showed a percentage growth of 14.9, 7.2, 6.3, 4.8, 3.6 and 3.0 respectively

For major retailers, the ratio of in-store shoppers to online ones circle around the 4 to 1 mark except for Walmart which shows a ratio of 2.9 in-store shoppers for each online shopper

The prime customer benefits program has helped to increase the online grocery sales for Amazon as statistics show that two-thirds of grocery shoppers, with a Prime membership, bought groceries from them in the past year.

Read more: How "Shopurgrocery" can help your grocery business to continue after COVID pandemic

Even though sharp growth indication is there in e-grocery sales, you won't believe it when the facts state that only a small section of food purchase is done online in the U.S. However there is a changing trend, there is a reported 14% of online grocery orders against 11.8% last year.

The coexistence of in-store and online shopping

The figures definitely indicate that the buying mode of people are increasing to the online way as there is a reduction in the number of consumers doing none of their grocery shopping online but on the other hand there is also a small reduction in the number of consumers depending entirely online for their grocery needs. Now grocers can brace of online presence in the future of grocery business. These statistics indicate that in-store shopping is there to stay but online shopping can definitely support it.