Dive Brief:
- Online grocery sales hit $9.9 billion in August, an increase of 7% compared to the same time last year as all three fulfillment methods posted year-over-year sales growth, Brick Meets Click and Mercatus reported Monday.
- Delivery sales increased 10% last month compared to the year prior, while ship-to-home rose 9% and pickup saw a nearly 4% uptick.
- Promotional efforts for subscription and membership programs, specifically in the delivery segment, led to the third consecutive month of high-single-digit sales gains for online grocery in 2024, the report found.
Dive Insight:
Delivery had a strong growth spurt in August thanks in part to numerous promotional incentives, Brick Meets Click and Mercatus reported.
Compared to the 6% year-over-year gain in monthly active users (MAUs) for the overall e-commerce channel, delivery’s MAU base expanded by nearly 16% — almost three times faster than pickup’s and nearly double Walmart’s MAU base growth.
Since May, special offers and promotions from grocers and other food retail players have increasingly focused on delivery and helped boost e-grocery sales. For example, Instacart in May started offering 80% off its annual membership and Walmart promoted half off its membership program.
Between June and August, total online grocery sales gained 7.9% year-over-year compared to the 1.4% growth seen between March and May. Accounting for the effect of seasonality, the estimated incremental impact between the three-month periods is a 2.2% lift, Brick Meets Click and Mercatus noted.
Delivery’s shift is “even more dramatic,” the report stated, with sales between June and August growing by 16% compared to the 0.6% growth recorded between March and May. This increase was primarily due to the expansion of delivery’s MAU base and “skyrocketing” order frequency.
Meanwhile, Walmart is continuing to pose a threat to supermarkets. The share of U.S. households that primarily shop for groceries at Walmart, either in-store or online, rose to approximately 30% between June and August, the report noted.
“Households that chose Walmart as their primary grocery retailer were already more likely to buy groceries online, and now the difference between Walmart and Supermarkets has widened even further on that metric,” according to the report.
The findings reflect a survey of 1,829 shoppers Brick Meets Click fielded August 30-31