Despite eCommerce Push, 87% of Grocery Transactions Occur in Stores

For all grocers’ efforts, their shoppers continue to favor brick-and-mortar channels by a huge margin, new PYMNTS research finds.

By the Numbers

Research from PYMNTS’ new study “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Catching the Coming eCommerce Wave,” created in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, which draws from an April survey of a census-balanced panel of nearly 2,700 U.S. consumers, reveals that 87% of grocery transactions are carried out in stores, and only 12% occur online.

The Data in Action

This endurance of brick-and-mortar comes in spite of grocers’ major investments in their digital channels, doing everything they can to drive eCommerce adoption.

Take, for instance, Kroger, the United States’ leading pure-play grocer, which has been opening automated delivery fulfillment centers for digital orders across the United States. However, earlier this spring, it was reported that the grocer has been slowing the rollout, per comments from the company’s technology partner, British online grocery company Ocado. 

“They are committed to building more, they just want to make those [existing] ones work as well as they can before they roll out loads – very sensible thing to do,” Ocado CEO Tim Steiner reportedly said.

The comments came weeks after Kroger spoke on its most recent earnings call about its ongoing digital push, with the grocer “investing in technology to improve the customer proposition and augmenting personalization,” according to CFO Gary Millerchip.  

Meanwhile, at least for now, grocers that have not invested as much in their digital platforms are benefitting significantly from the ongoing demand for brick-and-mortar shopping. Take, for instance, Trader Joe’s.

On a recent episode of the grocery chain’s podcast, “Inside Trader Joe’s,” the company spoke to the motivations behind its lack of online shopping and delivery options, attributing it in part to an emphasis that the retailer places on product discovery and to the role that people (both associates and fellow customers) play in the shopping journey.

“It’s that experience of being inside the four walls of Trader Joe’s that makes Trader Joe’s what it is,” Trader Joe’s Vice President of Marketing Tara Miller explained. “That experience would not be the same if you were trying to order something from a website that just showed you the products you already know about. … When you are shopping virtually as opposed to in a physical space, you tend to have blinders on, and you see the products you are already looking for.”