More Men Than Women Shop Online for Groceries

Men use eGrocery channels more than women, and this divide is especially wide for aggregators.

For the PYMNTS study The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: The Gender Divide, we surveyed more than 2,600 U.S. consumers in October about how they engage digitally with their everyday activities. Regarding grocery habits, the data revealed a wide gap across gender lines.

Get Your Copy: The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: The Gender Divide

Specifically, it found that, across every online grocery ordering channel, men are far more likely to engage, a divide that has existed since PYMNTS first started measuring in November 2021 and one that shows no signs of changing anytime soon.

Most starkly, as of the October survey, 42% of men reported using a same-day grocery delivery website such as Instacart, while a dramatically lower 28% of women said the same.

Yet, it is not only same-day delivery channels in which we see this marked divide. Thirty-five percent of men reported ordering groceries or meal kits from a subscription service in October, compared to just 24% of women. Similarly, 43% of men ordered groceries online directly from the merchant for home delivery, while only 35% of women did the same. For curbside, the figures amount to 45% and 36%, respectively, and for in-store pickup, 43% and 30%.

“A projected eight million more men than women ordered their groceries online for home delivery in October 2022 alone,” the study notes. “[Conversely,] many women still prefer to buy their groceries in person, with a projected 11.2 million more women shopping in brick-and-mortar grocery stores than men in the same time frame.”

While these shares differed significantly, the channels ranked similarly across both genders surveyed in terms of preference. The most popular channel among men is curbside, and the least popular is meal kit or grocery subscription. So too, do women exhibit a preference for curbside pickup, and they are less likely to go with subscription options than other eGrocery channels.

See It Now: The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: The Gender Divide