The 2026 Grocery Retail Industry Mid-Year Reality Check: Online Grocery Is Exploding

In January, we published two analyses of where online grocery was heading in 2026.

The first identified five shopper shifts that would define the year. The second drew four lessons from 2025’s sales data.

Those pieces were built on a full year of data and what we saw as the early signals of acceleration for annual sales heading into the new year. 

Six months later, the question isn’t whether our insights and advice held. 

It’s how much the timeline has compressed. 

According to Brick Meets Click’s ongoing grocery shopper survey, online grocery has now sustained 20%-plus year-over-year growth for six consecutive quarters. FMI and NielsenIQ now project online grocery sales will reach $452 billion by 2028, and without eCommerce, many grocery categories would already be posting flat or declining sales.

The trends we flagged didn’t just continue. They outran our forecast, and now represent a new baseline for the industry.

Online Grocery Sales Accelerated

When we wrote in January that online grocery was “no longer conditional,” the evidence was compelling but still rooted in monthly snapshots from the prior year:

• November 2025’s $12.3 billion in total sales
• July crossing $10 billion for the first time
• 15 straight months of rising order frequency

The first half of 2026 turned those snapshots into a structural shift in where grocery dollars go. 

According to Brick Meets Click’s data, online’s share of total grocery spending has climbed from less than 15% at the end of the third quarter of 2024 to more than 19% in the first quarter of this year. 

FMI and NielsenIQ report that online sales accounted for roughly 72% of total grocery dollar growth in 2025. In-store sales, by comparison, are expected to grow at a compound annual rate of less than 1% through 2028. 

The gap between those two numbers is the difference between where grocery revenue is going and where many grocers are still investing most of their operational attention.

For grocery retailers still treating their site or app as a secondary channel, the mid-year data puts a price on that posture. The digital share of grocery spending isn’t just growing. It’s growing at a rate that makes the in-store-first operating model a shrinking-returns proposition.

Grocery Delivery Speed Became the Competitive Weapon We Warned About

In January, we wrote that convenience was being redefined by speed, and that the grocery stores trying to match mass retailers head-on were choosing a margin fight they couldn’t win.

Six months in, that margin fight has gotten worse.

The vast majority of delivery orders now arrive same-day, and ultra-fast fulfillment, delivery within one hour or less, has gone from a novelty to a meaningful share of both delivery and ship-to-home volume. 

The Amazon and Walmart Threat

Amazon and Walmart are the forces behind that shift as they continue to represent intense competition for traditional grocers beyond offering lower prices.

Amazon’s 30-minute delivery service for Prime members already serves several major markets and is expanding to dozens more by year’s end. According to Walmart’s most recent earnings call, its sub-30-minute service now reaches roughly 60% of the U.S. population, powered by a store network that doubles as distribution hubs for online grocery orders.

Both offers have disrupted the industry.

This tracks with what we warned about in January: fulfillment isn’t a back-of-house, grocery distribution decision anymore. It’s a behavioral lever that shapes where shoppers spend.

For regional grocers, the response can’t be to chase sub-hour delivery windows. That path leads to margin erosion.

The response has to be smarter fulfillment: competing on perceived convenience through targeted offers that close the gap at specific friction points like fees, lead times, and checkout uncertainty, rather than burning margin on across-the-board speed investments.

Grocery Industry Growth Got Wider

Our January analysis identified that online grocery sales growth was coming from more households ordering more often, not from existing shoppers increasing basket size and spending more per trip. 

We called it “growth getting wider before it got deeper.”

That pattern has intensified through the first half of 2026. Data from FMI and NielsenIQ puts a finer point on the challenge this creates.

Whether due to inflation or economic uncertainty, consumer preferences for online shopping have disproportionately moved toward small baskets.

In 2025, 39% of trips to physical stores were stock-up shops with 12 or more grocery items. Only 16% of online trips cleared that threshold.

Economic Tension From Consumer Behavior

More orders means more labor, more fulfillment complexity, and more demand on picking and staging infrastructure. When those additional orders carry smaller baskets, the margin math gets harder with every percentage point of steady growth.

The January articles argued that the retailers handling this best would be the ones focused on what happened after the first few trips, using data to earn the next order rather than just accommodate it. 

Six months in, that’s precisely where the divergence is showing up. 

The grocers treating every order as an isolated transaction are increasing cost. The ones connecting order data to engagement are increasing value.

The Profit Pool Is Still Where We Said It Was

In January, we wrote that profit in online grocery wasn’t coming from chasing new users. It was concentrating around repeat customers, specifically the “super users” placing four or more orders in a three-month period.

Nothing in the first half of 2026 has contradicted that finding. If anything, the concentration has sharpened as the category has grown.

FMI’s report notes that 94% of shoppers now qualify as omnichannel shoppers, using both digital and physical channels. That’s nearly universal adoption. 

The question is no longer “Are your customers shopping online?” It’s “Are they repeatedly shopping online with you?”

Attraction Vs. Retention

It boils down to a general principle for the entire retail industry: It’s less costly to retain a customer than it is to gain a new one.

Acquiring an online shopper costs more when mass merchandisers are offering 30-minute delivery as the baseline experience. Retaining one gets easier when your platform recognizes that shopper’s preferences, trip cadence, and category patterns across every channel.

Recognition also compounds. A shopper who feels remembered orders again. One who gets a generic circular is one promotional offer away from trying someone else.

What the Mid-year Data Tells Regional Grocers to Do Now

The January articles made their recommendations forward-looking. 

The mid-year data makes them even more urgent.

Online grocery’s share of total spending has crossed 19% and is climbing. Small baskets dominate online orders, compressing per-order economics. Mass retailers are investing heavily in sub-hour delivery as a retention mechanism to meet the expectations of modern grocery shopping behavior.

None of these forces are going to reverse in the second half of the year. Every one of them rewards grocers who operate from a unified view of the customer and punishes those still running disconnected systems.

DXPro Is Built For The Operational Reality of Today’s Grocery Industry

DXPro’s customer data capabilities track behavior across every channel and fulfillment method, so a change in one shows up immediately rather than surfacing weeks later in a report. 

When a shopper’s frequency declines, basket composition shifts, or checkout friction threatens a sale, the platform allows you to respond quickly with proven tactics: 

• A win-back offer for a lapsing customer
• A retention nudge for one whose value is trending downward
• A targeted incentive at the exact moment it can change the outcome

The time is now for retailers to stop treating online grocery as a channel and start operating it as the business.

Talk to our team today, and see how DXPro helps grocers respond to what’s actually changing in online grocery retail.