More people are shopping for groceries online – new entrepreneurs are expected to continue to open up shop.
31% of US consumers purchased food online according to this Harris Poll. Most were millennials, these consumers also tended to be college students, parents, people living in an urban setting and those making over 50 grand a year. There was a strong correlation between income and likeliness to order food online. The most obvious items were certainly ordered most, with 20% being snack food, 17% non-alcoholic beverages, 16% being dry non-perishables, but most surprising was fresh fruits and veggies being 16% of the total. More than half said they ordered foods they can’t regularly find on the shelves, but only 5% have stopped most local grocery shopping altogether.
Morgan Stanley estimated that online grocery shopping will account for over 42 billion dollars in 2016, which is 163% of what was spent last year. This trend seems to be growing, and we expect many more businesses to jump in before the market saturates. There seems to be a lot of headroom in the industry and we do not expect a slowdown in terms of new businesses entering the market anytime soon.
Online Alcohol sales and delivery also growing trend.
More and more local breweries, wineries, and specialty spirits distilleries are looking to transform some of their walk-in tasting room business into long-term consumers, even if their walk-in visitors live hundreds of miles away. We have spoken to many of these merchant’s and have put together a brief How to sell alcohol online 101 for them as well.
If you are looking to get into the online grocery or alcohol business and would like some friendly advice on the payment and data processing piece, please feel free to contact us any time for a free consultation, and some friendly advice.