Online grocery in the United States experienced robust growth in Q3, with total sales rising by 13.8% to $27.4 billion compared to $24 billion for the same period in 2023. This increase was largely propelled by significant year-over-year growth in delivery, according to the U.S. eGrocery Market Share Report – 3Q24, powered by Brick Meets Click and Mercatus.
“The strong 3Q24 results for e-grocery underscore the importance of strengthening the customer value proposition to align better with the evolving expectations associated with shopping online for groceries,” says David Bishop, partner at Brick Meets Click. “Mass, and Walmart in particular, have demonstrated the value of better understanding online shoppers’ preferences while also leveraging its vast store network and digital reach to grow faster than the overall market.”
“To compete effectively against giants like Walmart, Supermarkets must deepen their customer connections and enhance their service,” says Mark Fairhurst, chief growth officer at Mercatus. “Leveraging customer insights is crucial for creating personalized experiences and offering targeted savings to customers, but that's only possible when retailers can effectively operationalize the data."
Key takeaways:
- All three receiving methods – delivery, ship-to-home, and pickup – contributed to the overall growth for Q3 but to varying degrees. Ship-to-home posted a gain of 15%, and pickup gained approximately 5%. Most of the increase was driven by delivery, which had 25% year-over-year sales growth after posting a nearly 6% decline during the prior year.
- In terms of overall e-grocery sales, the mass format continued to gain market share, driven by the delivery and ship-to-home segments, as supermarkets wrestled with ongoing declines.
- The monthly active user (MAU) base, which includes all methods and retail formats, grew from 54% last year to 56% this year, helping to drive e-grocery’s sales gains. In addition, the proportion of MAUs that spent 25% or more of their weekly grocery budget online increased by over 3 percentage points vs. Q3 2023.
- The share of total grocery spending going online also resumed its upward trajectory, climbing to 14.6% in Q3, after pulling back in Q3 2023. The combined share that pickup and delivery contributed to e-grocery sales increased by 110 basis points over the previous year.
- The challenges will likely continue for supermarkets as a larger share of their MAUs choose to cross-shop for groceries online from mass.
