US Online Grocery Sales Hit $7.2B In June

Online grocery sales growth continued in June as the pandemic continued to shape the way people shopped for necessities like food, according to a new survey by Brick Meets Click.

In the last 30 days, the survey found that the number of online sales grew over 9 percent, hitting a record of $7.2 billion. That’s up from $6.6 billion in May.

The growth comes from a 16 percent increase in the total number of orders during June. There were 85 million made in June, up from 73.5 million from May. In addition, there was strong spending per order, $84 on average in June and $90 in May.

Household penetration rose to 35 percent in June, with the number of customers ordering groceries online for delivery or pickup reaching 45.6 million in June, up from 43 million in May. Purchase frequency was up 9 percent from May as households made an average 1.9 online grocery orders for either delivery or pickup, an increase from May’s 1.7.

Brick Meets Click said the data prove that online grocery ordering is becoming a more integral part of the average American life than it once was.

“This increase in online grocery capacity has flipped the equation,” the company said. “Today as shoppers have more choice, the increased capacity is now actually enabling the continued growth of online grocery.”

In a PYMNTS interview, John Ross, president and CEO of the Independent Grocery Alliance, said the challenge in adapting a grocery store for a mobile ordering system is that a grocery store is not something that used to be accessed on a mobile phone.

“The majority of transactions are coming from mobile devices, not laptops or desktops,” Ross said. “Whatever model you have, you have to look [at it] through the lens of, ‘How is it going to appear on mobile devices, and how can we accelerate [that] experience for the shopper?’” 

He said it is also important to list inventory in a convenient way, without forcing customers to sift through tens of thousands of items to buy the normal things they’re interested in from the grocery store.