US grocery sales to quadruple in next five years
US online grocery sales in the US are set to quadruple in the next five years, having already more than tripled since 2013.
According to the report by research agency Packaged Facts, growth in the market has gained considerable momenturm since Amazon purchased Whole Foods in 2017, as retailers such as Walmart have raced to compete with Amazon in the online grocery space.
Over the last year, Walmart has acquired the grocery delivery app Cornershop for $225 million, expanded the service areas of its Jet delivery service and teamed up with with Japanese retailer Rakuten to launch a new online grocery delivery service in the country.
Amazon and Walmart are currently the key players in the market, and between them account for nearly 28% of US online grocery sales. Instacart, Kroger, FreshDirect, and Peapod have also been identified as major participants in the online grocery space.
The report claims that increased smartphone usage by consumers, better website and mobile interfaces, and the expansion of the crowdsourced business models has accelerated the expansion of the market.
Most of the growth in the market has actually occurred since 2016, as e-commerce platforms and traditional bricks and mortar grocery stores expanded their service areas, and the report cited Instacart’s partnership with Aldi as a key example of this rapid expansion.
Instacart partnered with Aldi in August 2017 to deliver groceries in three cities, and by September 2018 the company announced the partnership would expand to all of its stores in the US.