More evidence that curbside pickup is key to a healthy eGrocery program

To really understand numbers and data, you need to know their back story.?

Case in point: a recent survey found that U.S. online grocery sales were down 23% from the June 2020, with a small decline (-3%) from May 2021.?

These findings are from the June 2021 installment of the ongoing independent research initiative, State of the US eGrocery Market: Understanding the Online Shopper, created and conducted by Brick Meets Click and sponsored by Mercatus.

At first glance, the numbers might seem frightening. But it’s not a the-sky-is-falling scenario, a fact that Mercatus’s Mark Fairhurst and Brick Meets Click’s David Bishop explore in a discussion of the report, which you can watch here. After all, some degree of drop-off in online sales was expected following last year’s pandemic pantry-stocking frenzy. And despite the overall decline in numbers, there’s one area displaying an enormous amount of strength and resiliency: grocery pickup. This fulfillment category continues to be strong, even when looked at from many different angles. For example:

• Whereas the monthly average user base for delivery and ship-to-home both dropped year-over-year (one and six points, respectively), pickup’s user base jumped almost 16 points.?
• The survey geo-coded responses by zip code, categorizing users based on four market types based on population size. Not only did pickup regain the top share in large metropolitan markets in June, it also re-emerged as the dominant fulfillment method across all four market types.?
• One-third of monthly active users (33%) received their online grocery orders exclusively through pickup. In comparison, just half that number — 16% — used delivery only to get groceries.?

These findings really underscore the importance to every eGrocery program of offering a great pickup service. (Why aren’t you reading more about the dominance of pickup? Find out in our survey recap discussion.)

But while pickup is preferred by shoppers, it’s also under fire. This is no time for grocers to be complacent.?

When monthly active users (households that have purchased groceries online within the last month) were surveyed, it was noted that 28.2% who shopped online at their grocer also bought groceries online from a mass retailer.

Apart from the loss of market share, what’s concerning about that is the crossover expectations. As grocery customers drive up to the parking lot to collect their orders from their local grocer, one out of every four of them may be recalling a recent pickup at a mass retailer like Walmart or Target, and inherently comparing their current grocery experience to that one. If the wait time is longer — and chances are it will be, unless the grocer is using geolocation technology to communicate with the customer — the comparison may not be a favorable one.?

Pickup represents a huge opportunity for grocers to solidify their sales gains. But with ever-increasing competition from mass merchants and third-party delivery services, regional grocers will need to double-down on their strategy to capitalize on this opportunity.?

That means modelling your business to align with the shopping preferences of repeat customers. It means playing to your brand’s unique strengths. It means investing in technology to improve the customer pickup experience. And it means realigning your operating models to be able to provide that seamless pickup experience at a lower cost to your business for long-term sustainability.?

When regional grocers take these actions to provide a seamless pickup experience for their clients, they increase their chances of long-term success.

Take a deep dive into these numbers and other June survey findings at the Mercatus website. While you’re there, tune in to a fascinating discussion of these findings as Mark Fairhurst, VP Marketing at Mercatus, and David Bishop, Partner at Brick Meets Click, explore the stories behind the numbers.?

Sylvain Perrier is President & CEO of Mercatus, the leading digital commerce platform for grocery. Sylvain is highly sought after with over 20 years of executive-level experience in retail technology, pushing the boundaries in specialty areas such as mobile commerce, web technology, in-store operations, and Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture. In addition to his executive responsibilities, Sylvain hosts the Digital Grocer podcast and is a recipient of 2019's Grocery Game Changer by the editors of Winsight Grocery Business and was named a Top 10 Influential in Retail 2020 by RIS News.