Trendspotting: Record-breaking month for online grocery sales
Trendspotting: Record-breaking month for online grocery sales
July was a record-setting month for the online grocery segment. Sales totaled $10 billion, a 26 percent increase from the prior year, according to the latest Brick Meets Click Grocery Shopper Survey, sponsored by Mercatus.
The surge in sales can be attributed to record-high household penetration, strong order activity and solid gains in spending rates, which helped online capture over 17 percent of total grocery spending during the month.
All three receiving methods posted strong monthly results during July. Delivery sales drove more than half of eGrocery monthly gains, jumping 36 percent on a year-over-year basis to finish July 2025 with $4.3 billion. Pickup posted $4 billion in monthly sales, growing 24 percent versus last year and contributing 38 percent to eGrocery YOY sales growth. Ship-to-home ended July with $1.6 billion in sales, an increase of 10 percent compared to July 2024, generating the balance of online’s sales growth this year.
“The elimination of explicit fees, like the standard delivery cost, via a membership or subscription program, removes a top barrier to increased usage and customers are taking advantage of it,” said David Bishop, partner, Brick Meets Click. “This tactic is unlocking latent demand for delivery which is typically viewed as the more convenient but also the more expensive option when compared to pickup.”
July 2025 set a record for eGrocery penetration as 81 million, or approximately 61 percent of U.S. households, bought groceries online during the month, whether the order was shipped, picked up or delivered. Compared to a year ago, the overall number of monthly average users (MAU) climbed almost 11 percent.
The average number of eGrocery orders completed by MAUs during July grew 6.5 percent versus 12 months ago. The two middle age groups (30-44 and 45-60) generated the gains as the youngest and oldest groups both reported slight pullbacks in activity. While mass saw order frequency among its MAUs grow in the mid-single digits, supermarkets saw its order rate decline slightly versus July 2024 — largely due to a strong YOY expansion of its MAU base.
Although all methods posted gains in their respective average order values (AOV), delivery was the main driver of the 7 percent YOY increase in eGrocery’s overall AOV. Delivery’s AOV climbed 8 percent, pickup’s AOV grew under 5 percent, and ship-to-home expanded by less than 2 percent. Another factor affecting delivery and pickup AOVs is the favorable shift in the mix of their respective MAU bases toward households who have completed four plus orders with the same online shopping service during the past three months. This more-engaged user segment consistently reports spending about 50 percent more per order than first timers.
"In an era where ‘free’ delivery is setting new customer expectations and Walmart’s retail media revenue fuels its competitive edge, regional grocers face mounting pressure to profitably serve shoppers online,” said Mark Fairhurst, chief growth marketing officer for Mercatus. “Grocery retailers that own and activate their customer data to target and personalize offers — especially for infrequent or lapsed shoppers — can turn renewed engagement into lasting loyalty, defending both sales and margins."
