Amazon wants you to buy groceries online, and it seems they will succeed.
The new Brick Meets Click research,“How the online grocery market is shifting - What the industry needs to know in 2018,” reveals the latest growth estimates for the sector.
Based on their survey, Brick Meets Click estimates that online’s share of total grocery spending increased from 4.5% in 2017 to 5.5% in 2018, a gain of 22%.
Online grocery spending is expected to grow 13% per year, compared with 1.3% growth for store sales.
By 2022, online grocery will exceed 8% of total grocery spending, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the report reveals spending by weekly “active online grocery shoppers” increased from 28% of the household’s grocery spending in 2017 to 46% in 2018. That’s an increase of 61% compared with the previous year.
The report’s closing note suggests why Amazon is so formidable in online grocery.
According to the authors, while more than three-quarters of U.S. households buy products on Amazon, just 11% bought groceries from them in the last month.
That’s gap means there is a lot of room for Amazon to grow its grocery business through incentives with Prime membership and leveraging Whole Foods supermarkets for points of distribution.
On July 24, Amazon and Whole Foods Market said that they have launched delivery of natural and organic products from Whole Foods Market through Prime Now in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Palm Beach, parts of Long Island and select areas in New York City.
“Prime members in those cities can shop through Prime Now for bestselling items including fresh produce, high-quality meat and seafood, everyday staples and other locally sourced items from Whole Foods Market,” the Amazon release said.
Amazon said the service launched earlier this year and will expand to additional neighborhoods in New York City, and across the U.S. throughout 2018.
If Amazon makes it easy to buy high-quality produce online at a reasonable cost, the online retailer surely will change the world, whether we want it to change or not.
