According to a May 4th posting on Supermarket News consumers demonstrated an increasing willingness to return to brick-and mortar stores. Inmar Intelligence notes that 27 percent of consumers plan to purchase their requirements in person with 38 percent splitting their requirements between stores and online ordering.  At present 33 percent of U.S. consumers are purchasing groceries in stores with 48 percent in the category of hybrid shoppers. The widespread adoption of vaccines has created a sense of security contributing to a steady return to normalcy.

A habit acquired during COVID restrictions is the tendency to stockpile non-perishable items including cleaning supplies, canned food and alcohol.  With a return to in-store shopping, consumers indicate that despite the apparent convenience of online ordering there are motivations to shop personally. These include problems with delivery, surcharges, questions over quality of produce and meat and scheduling delivery times.