US eGrocery Sales Trends with Brick Meets Click – October 2022 Insights

Overview

The Brick Meets Click and Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey fielded October 28-29, 2022 found that U.S. online grocery sales totaled $7.8 billion in October, a 3% year-over-year decline from October 2021, and flat versus prior month of September.

While the YoY performance decline in October was similar to the prior month, October’s eGrocery results were impacted by consumer changes in spending per order, order frequency, and monthly active users (MAUs).

In October, the MAU for Mass grew much faster than for Grocery versus last year, which could be an affect that inflation is having on household spending.

Further, all three segments (Pickup, Delivery, and Ship-to-Home) experienced 5% aggregate decline in average order value (AOV) versus last year. Ship-to-Homes’ AOV was impact the most at 11% YoY; Delivery AOV declined by 7% YoY, and Pickup’s AOV contracted by just over 3% YoY. Experts believe that the overall contracted online grocery spending may be a result of consumers choosing to shop in-store vs online due to the economic forecast and price inflation.

Across Ship-to-Home, Pickup, and Delivery, overall online order frequency declined by 7% in aggregate versus last year. Ship-to-Home felt the biggest impact with a 12% YoY decline; Delivery was mostly flat, with less than a 0.5% performance change vs prior year; and Pickup contracted by 7% YoY.  The declining online order frequency may suggest a preference shift for consumers towards in-store shopping.

Although, top-line-revenue suffered, the eGrocery market continued a positive trajectory in October, with the overall monthly active user (MAU) bases increasing 10% year-over-year, but declining slightly compared to September. The growing eGrocer customer base represents an opportunity for retailers to unlock latent demand.

Moreover, the effects of inflation can be correlated to the 15% year-over-year increase in total grocery spending (online and offline) in the last week of October. Whereas, online groceries share of wallet dipped by 0.5% YoY,  accounting for 11.6% of total sales.

The effects of persistent price inflation were evident in total grocery spending as the average dollars spent on groceries per household during the last week of October increased 15% versus last year. During that period, online’s share of spending dipped around 50 basis points, accounting for 11.6% of the $7.8 billion total grocery sales in October of 2022.

Another key data point from the October 2022 survey: the share of Grocery MAUs who also shopped online with Mass providers remained steady at nearly 28%; which is up 2% versus 2021.  Moreover, two-thirds of this group also shopped with Walmart in 2021 and 2022. Therefore, Grocery MAUs are likely forming expectations and preferences for online grocery based on their direct experience with these Mass brands.

The repeat intent rate for online grocery landed at 58%, a 1.10% growth versus October 2021, and a 2.30% decline from September 2022. In addition, the gap between the repeat intent rate for Grocery and Mass has widened significantly, as customers are encountering different experiences at both types of grocery providers.  Repeat intent for Mass is 0.7% higher than Grocery, versus 0.2% in October of 2021.

Delivery continues to benefit overall from more competitive activity, in the form of newer services expanding; however, Pickup still is the preferred method to receive online grocery orders.

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If you haven’t yet, make sure you read the full U.S. eGrocery sales press release here.