According to a posting by Mark Hamstra in Supermarket News on March 13th, total digital grocery sales attained $128 billion in 2021. Data was assembled by Incisiv with an expectation that sales might attain $150 billion in 2023.
During the past year, 14 percent of grocery sales were through a digital channel expanding to an anticipated 15 percent in the current year. It is estimated that the proportion of grocery shoppers using digital channels will increase from 63 percent in 2022 to 87 percent in 2023.
Although convenient for shoppers, digital sales incur incremental expenses that reduce margins for chains. Grocery pickup is the least costly for retailers but incurs additional labor to select and assemble orders and to deliver packages to customers. Third-party service has declined sharply from 31 percent of sales in January of 2022 to 19 percent in December of that year.