Online grocery sales in Q3 2024 “experienced robust growth,” according to data from Brick Meets Click and Mercatus, which track the industry’s web sales in the U.S.
In 2024, Q3 online grocery sales were larger for each of the receiving methods Brick Meets Click and Mercatus track than in the same quarter in 2023 and 2022.
Brick Meets Click and Mercatus define the three receiving methods for online grocery sales as:
- Delivery: Includes orders received from a first- or third-party provider like Instacart, Shipt or the retailer’s own employees.
- Pickup: Includes orders received by customers either inside or outside a store or at a designated location/locker.
- Ship-to-home: Includes orders that are received via common or contract carriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.
In the delivery segment, mass merchants increased their share of online grocery sales in Q3, according to Brick Meets Click and Mercatus data, taking 52.7%. Meanwhile, supermarkets’ share of sales slid to 38%.
Similarly, mass merchants increased their share of sales from the ship-to-home segment to 16.4%. That came at Amazon’s expense, according to Brick Meets Click. Amazon held 50.1% of that segment’s sales share in the quarter, Brick Meets Click said.
Meanwhile, in the pickup segment, mass merchants’ share of sales fell to 56.1%.
“The strong 3Q24 results for eGrocery underscore the importance of strengthening the customer value proposition to align better with the evolving expectations associated with shopping online for groceries,” said David Bishop, partner at Brick Meets Click, in a statement. “Mass [merchants], 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.”
Online grocery sales in Q3
In Q3 2024, U.S. online grocery sales grew 13.8% year over year, to $27.4 billion from $24 billion. In Q3 2022, sales were slightly higher than 2023, at $24.1 billion.
Delivery sales drove much of that growth, according to Brick Meets Click and Mercatus. They increased 25% year over year in the quarter, growing to $10.9 billion in Q3 2024 from $8.7 billion in the prior-year quarter.
Meanwhile, pickup, which had the largest share of online grocery sales in Q3, grew 5%. That’s up to $11.5 billion in Q3 2024 from $11 billion in Q3 2023. Ship-to-home — which had the smallest share of sales — grew 15%, to $4.9 billion, from $4.3 billion the year before.
By month, online grocery sales in Q3 were:
“To compete effectively against giants like Walmart, Supermarkets must deepen their customer connections and enhance their service,” said Mark Fairhurst, chief growth officer at Mercatus, in a statement. “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.”
September online grocery sales
Online grocery sales in September grew by $2 billion year over year, reaching $9.5 billion in 2024. That’s a 27% year-over-year increase, according to Brick Meets Click and Mercatus data.
Brick Meets Click said that although September’s total online grocery sales were lower than in August, the decline was smaller than expected based on seasonal patterns. It said it estimated those online grocery sales patterns based on monthly sales over the last four years.
“September also marked the fourth straight month of high-single-digit sales gains for eGrocery in 2024, primarily driven by strong promotional efforts for subscription and membership programs that started in May,” according to Brick Meets Click.
Specifically, the delivery segment grew 45% year over year to reach $3.9 billion, almost equaling sales from the pickup segment, which is consistently the largest by total sales. Brick Meets Click attributes this to an expanded base of monthly active users as well as an increase in both average order value and order frequency.
At the same time, pickup sales grew 10% year over year to reach $4.0 billion. Like with delivery, Brick Meets Click attributed part of that growth to a larger base of active users and higher AOVs. However, it said order frequency declined for the segment.
Ship-to-home, consistently the smallest segment of the three, increased sales 30% year over year to a total of $1.7 billion. Brick Meets Click said this segment posted the highest AOV growth among the three while also notching a rise in both active users and order frequency.
Click here to read last month’s update on online grocery sales.
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