This statistic highlights online grocery shopping sales in the United States from 2019 through 2024. The U.S. online grocery market was estimated to generate sales worth of about **** billion U.S. dollars in 2020, with sales forecast to reach ***** billion U.S. dollars by 2024. Among the leading online food and beverage retailers in 2016, were Amazon and Walmart. Online grocery shoppingGrocery sales through online platforms represent a very small part of the overall grocery retail market, but are amongst the fastest growing segment. Some people don’t enjoy the hassle of traditional grocery shopping, especially to stand in a queue before check-out. If consumers use the convenience of an online grocery service, they can pick their everyday products on the distributor’s website and will get the chosen items delivered right to their doorstep, which saves time. Most online suppliers in the United States provide same-day delivery options. During the last years, more and more firms tried to gain a foothold within the e-grocery industry. Companies engaged in the U.S. online grocery market include AmazonFresh, FreshDirect, NetGrocer, Walmart and Safeway. A relatively new and innovative business model is supplied by Instacart. The San Francisco-based company is a grocery transport service that delivers the grocery order through personal shoppers in *** to *** hours. As of February 2015, Instacart charged **** U.S. dollars per two-hour deliveries and ***** U.S. dollars per one-hour deliveries. The personal shoppers purchase the chosen items at different local food stores and deliver them to your house within the agreed time window. The use of virtual grocery stores has still a large growth potential as more and more time-strapped consumers are looking for innovative ways to make their lives easier. However, a significant hurdle for online grocers remains freshness as many customers still prefer to see and touch the produce before purchase.

In the United States, most online shoppers rarely abandonded their carts if no digital coupon was found across all shopping categories in 2024. It was most common to sometimes abandon carts with no digital coupon for toys, video games and games bought online, with 37.6 percent of online shoppers reporting this.

On average, a ******* of global shoppers were purchasing groceries online on a monthly basis in the second quarter of 2023. The United Kingdom had the highest share of monthly online grocery shoppers, at ** percent, followed closely by the United States at ** percent. In contrast, only ** percent of Polish respondents reported shopping for groceries online on a monthly basis.

The share of food retail sales made online in predominantly food stores in Great Britain saw its biggest growth in January 2021, when the coronavirus (COVID-19) containment measures were tightened in the United Kingdom. Since then, the proportion of online food retail slowly decreased and then remained stable at around nine percent in March 2025.

In the United Kingdom, Millennials are the most eager to buy their groceries online. According to a survey carried out in the second quarter 2023, ** percent of consumers in the country aged between 27 and 42 years old would buy grocery products mostly via e-commerce. Gen Z followed, as ** percent of the generational cohort preferred shopping for their groceries mostly online.

According to a survey carried out in 2024 in the United States, some ** percent of respondents chose to shop for their groceries/food exclusively in-person. Around *********** respondents buys groceries through a delivery service or app, while another ** percent buy it through curbside or pickup.

In a survey conducted in the second quarter of 2023, nearly ********** of Millennials in the United States reported shopping for groceries online on a monthly basis, compared to around ** percent of Gen X respondents.

According to a survey carried out in the second quarter of 2023, approximately ** percent of surveyed French consumers aged between 25 and 40 years old reported buying groceries online on a monthly basis. That figure stood at ** percent for Baby Boomers.

Online grocery shopping has become increasingly popular among shoppers since the COVID-19 pandemic, which spurred consumers to purchase their supermarket goods through the internet when faced with lockdowns and stay-home advisories. In 2021, the online food and grocery sales in the United Kingdom amounted to about ** billion British pounds. That figure was forecast to increase to nearly ** billion by 2025. Post-pandemic slowdown despite new shopping habits While online grocery still is expected to generate billions in revenue, growth of the market is set to slow down significantly. As official regulation surrounding the pandemic has ended, the high demand for online grocery ordering has lowered in turn. However, many consumers in 2022, particularly those of higher ages, still cited that avoiding crowds and risk of infection at physical stores was a strong reason for ordering their groceries online. Another popular reason for online grocery shoppers was due to having no time to go to the store themselves. Not the perfect alternative While saving time and avoiding crowds are pros to buying groceries on the web, there are also inevitable cons with this method of grocery shopping. A 2022 survey revealed that too many substituted items, not being able to find suitable delivery times, and un-fresh groceries were the most common negative aspects to online grocery shopping in the UK. These factors may be part of why nearly ** percent of shoppers bought their groceries primarily in-stores, and only partially online.

High demand during the lockdown following the COVID-19 outbreak caused the online food and grocery market penetration to nearly double between 2019 and 2021. However, as the situation has returned to normal, this growth has slowed. In 2022, the percentage of users purchasing food and groceries online was **** percent, a decrease compared to the previous year.

In the United Kingdom, consumers mostly bought their groceries in stores. A survey conducted in the second quarter of 2023 revealed that while 36 percent of UK shoppers purchased groceries online, nearly 50 percent preferred to shop mostly in person.

In 2023, millennials were the most likely to engage in grocery e-commerce in the U.S., with ** percent reporting that they shopped for groceries on the internet. Gen Z was next, with ** percent making online grocery purchases.

Globally, the user penetration of online grocery delivery services increased almost threefold between 2017 and 2025, going from *** percent to just over ** percent. Online grocery delivery penetration is poised to continue increasing until it reaches an estimated ** percent by 2030.

Over ********* of consumers from the Netherlands bought food or groceries online in 2019, a number higher than in Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. The Netherlands were followed by the UK, with a penetration rate of ** percent, and Germany. Due to a break in the time series, however, the Netherlands lost around ** percentage points between 2017 and 2018. That is not to say that Dutch consumers do not purchase their groceries through a web shop: the country’s two biggest supermarkets lead the online market in 2018. However, living in proximity to a physical store was a major determinant for customers in the Netherlands to not use online grocery shopping.

How big is online grocery shopping in Europe?

In 2017/2018, ***** percent of the value in global online grocery sales was made in the UK. France accounted for roughly *** percent, whereas Czechia surpassed the Netherlands and Germany. The online grocery market size in the UK was set at **** billion U.S. dollars in 2018 and is expected to increase to **** billion U.S. dollars by 2023. Germany’s market size was much smaller in comparison (*** billion U.S. dollars) but is believed to triple in size in the upcoming years.

How about online supermarkets in Europe?

Most of the players in the online grocery shopping market are “traditional” supermarkets which only make a small part of their revenue through online sales. What about the European e-tailers that do all their sales online? In the United Kingdom, one of these online-only start-up supermarkets is Ocado whilst the Netherlands has Picnic. The two companies are examples of retailers that target a specific audience, focusing on an online platform and at-home delivery. This has proven successful in the Netherlands, where Picnic increased its market share significantly between 2015 and 2019. Ocado, on the other hand, worked with Waitrose for multiple years but will start a cooperation with Marks & Spencer from 2020.

In the twelve months ending June 2018, the United Kingdom (UK) accounted for a share of *** percent of global online grocery sales, followed by France at *** percent. The eastern European country of Czechia surpassed other Western European markets such as the Netherlands and Germany to come in third in this ranking.

Online grocery sales in the UK

When it comes to the development of the online grocery sales market and the online sales value of food stores, the UK is a European leader. Despite this, online sales were still the smallest sales channel compared to sales of groceries in hypermarkets and supermarkets in the UK in 2016.

Traditional grocery stores

While the UK leads Europe in online sales of groceries, it has the smallest trade share of traditional grocery stores in Europe. Unsurprisingly countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain still have larger trade shares for traditional vendors. However, what is surprising, is that Spain also has a relatively large share of the worldwide online grocery market.

A 2022 survey revealed that among online grocery shoppers in the United States, at least *** percent exclusively buy groceries using e-commerce. Additionally, **** percent reported using online grocery services sometimes, while **** percent mostly shop online for their grocery needs.

In the first quarter of 2024, the sales revenue of the online grocery market in Denmark reached roughly *** billion Danish kroner, slightly down from the previous quarter. During the surveyed period, the online grocery market reached its peak in the first quarter of 2021, with a sales revenue of over *** billion Danish kroner. This could largely be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused more shoppers to turn to e-commerce while avoiding in-store shopping. Grocery shopping goes digital Globally, online grocery shopping has become increasingly popular since 2021, with grocery e-commerce revenue estimated to grow by around ** percent by 2026. In Denmark, the sales turnover of grocery products has been on the rise over the past few years. The third quarter of 2022 saw a sales turnover of over ***** billion Danish kroner, up from *** billion in the corresponding quarter in 2020. Meanwhile, around ** percent of the population in Denmark was planning on purchasing groceries online in the second quarter of 2022. Who shops online? There are multiple ways that Danish consumers can shop and order food via the internet. In 2022, more than ** percent of shoppers ordered deliveries from restaurants, while around a quarter purchased food and groceries online. The share of consumers that order groceries on the web varies significantly depending on different demographics. The consumers who had ordered food and groceries online the most in 2022 were between the ages of 20 and 39 years old. When looking into how gender plays a role in Danish online grocery shopping, women purchased these items more often than men.

This statistic shows the share of individuals who purchased food or groceries online in Croatia from 2009 to 2019. In 2019, two percent of individuals purchased groceries online in Croatia.

According to a survey conducted in South Korea in 2024 on food consumption, around **** percent of all responding households reported that they purchased groceries online once a week, while around **** percent did so every two weeks. In the same survey, roughly **** percent answered that they did not purchase groceries online.

By 2024, the number of online shoppers of grocery products might reach *** millions in the United States. The projection is a significant increase compared to 2019. Indeed, before the pandemic the number of U.S. online grocery purchasers did not go over ** million individuals.