USA | The U.S. online grocery market ended November 2024 with USD 9.6 billion monthly sales, a 17.8 percent increase over last year.
According to the Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopper Survey, the uptick in sales was predominantly powered by the strong expansion of the monthly active user (MAU) base as order frequency rates increased and overall spending per order remained unchanged compared to last year.
The new record of 77.8 million households that bought groceries online in November 2024 broke the previous high set in April 2020, the first month of the pandemic.
Delivery sales jumped to USD 3.9 billion, accounting for 40.6 percent of all eGrocery sales. An 8 percent increase in the MAU base and higher order activity led to a surge in sales, while the average order value (AOV) remained flat compared to last year.
Delivery results for November extended the segment’s strong growth trend that began in June 2024. This trend was fueled by the ongoing waves of deep-discounted offers on membership and subscription programs from various retailers and providers, which first started appearing in May.
“Supermarkets experienced a significant surge in their MAU base, benefiting from widespread and deep discounts on membership and subscription programs offered by national and regional grocers throughout November,” said David Bishop, Partner at Brick Meets Click.
“While that’s a positive sign for Supermarkets, the race to retain customers and grow share-of-wallet with them is only intensifying among rivals.”
Customer satisfaction with eGrocery services climbed in November as the overall repeat intent rate reached 65.2 percent, the highest score in the last four years and the third highest since the onset of COVID in March 2020.
The gain was primarily driven by a more than five percentage point increase in the share of MAUs who have completed four or more orders with a specific service within the last three months.
Regarding customer loyalty, supermarkets have made gains with households that rely on them as their primary grocery store.
Nearly 56 percent of households active online in November also ordered online from their primary store, an almost seven percent gain compared to last year.
Despite the gains for supermarkets, households that relied on a mass retailer as their primary grocery store were at least 30 percent more likely to order groceries online from mass than from supermarkets.
"Driving larger orders and fostering repeat purchases requires creating a more personalised and seamless online grocery shopping experience," said Mark Fairhurst, Chief Growth Officer at Mercatus.
"By offering tailored product recommendations based on customer preferences and lifestyles, alongside easy-to-use rewards programs and intuitive navigation, grocers can strengthen customer loyalty, build trust, and sustain long-term growth in the online grocery space."
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