Online grocery sales in June climbed 6% year over year to $7.2 billion, and for the second quarter, eGrocery posted $22.4 billion in sales, a gain of 1% compared to 2Q 2021, according to the Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey that was conducted at the end of June
“Inflation and Covid are creating cross-currents in the market as higher prices motivate customers to look for ways to avoid paying more than necessary, and ongoing concerns about contracting the virus motivate shoppers to use online grocery as a way to stay healthy,” said David Bishop, partner at the Brick Meets Click consulting firm. “This is especially true as new variants triggered surges in infections and rising illness rates in May and June.”
Pickup, the largest segment of eGrocery, performed well; its June and second quarter sales rose 3% respectively versus a year ago. For the second quarter of 2022, Pickup contributed 45.7% of total eGrocery sales, up 80 basis points versus 2021.
Delivery (such as Instacart) benefited from new service options and features that enlarged the size of its addressable market and stimulated more usage. Delivery’s monthly sales jumped over 20%, and it finished the quarter 6% higher than a year ago.
Delivery also reported mixed results relative to order frequency as frequency increased during June but declined for the quarter. It captured 34.2% of the online grocery dollar share for the second quarter, up 1.7 percentage points from 2021.
Ship-to-Home (using common and contract carriers like UPS) continues a long-term decline that started at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 when online grocery shopping began to evolve rapidly to meet new needs. Year over year, these sales fell over 14% in June and 10% for the second quarter. Ship-to-Home dollar share for the quarter was 20.0%, down 2.6% when compared to last year.
“Despite the current inflationary environment, a significant number of grocery customers continue to shop using online channels,” noted Mercatus President Sylvain Perrier.