Online grocery shopping boom just got unraveled

Virtual grocery market is growing exponentially to be one of the most promising online markets till date. Online grocery store websites basically showcase a large variety of goods to select from. Also you need not stand in long queues for billing!

Online share of FMCG(Fast Moving Consumer Goods) market is expected to grow more than double worldwide by 2025.

Source: Kantar Worldpanel

“Expect the global online grocery market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% from 2017 to 2022.” – Forrester

5 reasons why online grocery shopping is gearing up

Reasons people prefer online grocery portals over going to stores and buying grocery personally. Virtual purchases are leading its way into mainstream grocery business.

Let us look at some of the main reasons for this ever growing trend:

1. Increase in purchasing power of individuals or families:

With increase in working population, purchasing power has globally made its mark. In fact, families with more than one person earning are on rise. Portion of income that comes under spendable criteria is witnessing a rise. All these monetary factors together are directly leading population towards online grocery market.

Disposable income rates are increasing globally. Let’s look at some of these countries.

INDIA

Image credits : Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation(MOSPI)

India being one of the fastest growing economy 2018 has shown considerable jump in disposable personal income, explains the reason behind its growing online grocery sale.

USA: Is the world’s biggest economy 2018.

Image Credits : US Bureau of Economic Analysis

The U.S. online grocery market is estimated to generate sales worth of about 14.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, with sales forecast to reach 29.7 billion U.S. dollars by 2021. source: statista.com

CHINA

Image Credits: Trading Economics

China is the country with the largest population in the world.

It already has the world’s largest online grocery market in terms of value and this certainly shows no signs of slowing down. Shirley Zhu, Asia Programme Director at IGD

2. Cost Effective:

Grocery coupons at Amazon, eGift cards at BigBasket, ‘Buy 1 Get 1’ at FBB, Membership Cards on almost all of them, special off on festivals, once a month offer on Paytm etc are the offers we as a customer vouch for while grocery shopping.

These offers are more often available with online retailers . It saves those additional bucks you spend on commute to reach the physical marketplace.

“71% of shoppers believe they will get a better deal online than in stores”- Selz FounderU

Source: conversio.com

3. Wide product-base:

Online grocery portals usually have a wide variety of products and substitute products are readily available on demand. Amazon being the most trusted has a wide variety of grocery products along with other products.

In case, a grocery product is unavailable in your respective area, ordering it online is your solution.

Online grocery market in 2016 generated approximately 48 billion US dollars and is estimated to reach 150 billion US dollars by 2025’ – Statista

Image credit: scrapehero.com

Grocery and Gourmet Food consists of total 902,081 products available across 32 cities in the U.S

Looking for the latest food delivery trends in 2018? Check out this article here

4. Brand Presence:

Online grocery portals over a period of time have created a brand presence in the niche market. Actively creating awareness about the large product base and advertising tactics has worked in their favour.

User friendly applications, QA & QC certified products, referrals and discounts has attracted a wider audience over the last decade. Secure payment modes are equally responsible to persuade customer to buy online.

“…the turnaround has been scripted by focusing on insights into consumer behaviour” says Albinder Dhindsa, Co-founder and CEO, Grofers

“Companies are doing a very good job. They stay in business by making their customers happy by providing a high quality product.” – Hilary Thesmar, PhD, RD, vice president of food safety programs at Food Marketing Institute (FMI),

5. Shrinking time availability:

How many of us can remember spending time lavishly to buy groceries? Very few. Reason being long working hours and increased daily chores. So our go-to option remains these online grocery shopping portals!

Multitasking is new way of coping up with the fast lives that we are dealing on daily basis. Online grocery purchases usually helps you to narrow down your time spent on grocery shopping. You just have to put your requirement and within a fraction of moment and also little bit of pushing ‘add to cart’ button you can get over with shopping!

With expanding infrastructure for internet availability, more people have access to networks.

In a study done by ATKearney, they found out that majority of customers buy online because of its home delivery service.

Image credits: ATKearney

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

For the entrepreneurs who are new to this market, following are the most important elements in e-commerce, global online shoppers are look for:

Image credits: Statista

Summing up reasons for choosing Online Grocery Shopping over actual physical shops, we saw how increase in income and availability of Internet has played key role in establishing our trust on these online portals to fulfil our grocery needs.

Besides that, secure online payments gateways like Bill Desk, Paytm, CCAvenue, Amazon payments, WePay, PayPal and many more has ensured safe monetary transactions leading to increased authenticity of these online grocery selling applications.