Incisiv, a next-generation industry insights firm that helps retailers and brands navigate digital disruption, and Wynshop, the leading provider of digital commerce and fulfillment solutions for local store-based retailers, today revealed the findings from their State of Digital Grocery Performance Scorecard for January 2023, reflecting the latest analysis of shopper orders, plus interviews of grocery shoppers and executives about their 2023 outlook on sustainability.
Key findings from January’s survey included:
- 71% of grocers regard sustainability as a key priority in 2023, while 76% also regard it as a C-Level issue.
- 43% of grocers will appoint a senior executive to lead their sustainability efforts in 2023.
- Waste Reduction is grocers’ primary sustainability focus (86%) followed by energy efficiency (77%) and packaging improvement (66%).
- 73% of shoppers say that they want more transparent communication of sustainability characteristics on product packaging and display, while 37% said they would be willing to pay a premium of 11-17% for more sustainable options.
More key findings from the January 2023 Performance Scorecard include:
- Digital grocery sales, basket size, and items/basket all grew sharply over the past year
—Digital baskets averaged 4 items more in January 2023 than they did in January 2022, a 39.7% increase.
—At $10.7 billion, digital sales in January were up slightly over January 2022 ($10.4B). However, at 14.7% of overall grocery sales, this reflected a decline in total grocery market share from January 2022 (15.2%), and from the November 2022 high of 17.1%. - Third-party providers suffered big losses in 2022
—Grocery sales through third parties fell to $1.9B in January 2023, reflecting 18.1% of digital grocery sales.
—That represents a huge loss for third parties since January 2022, both in total dollar amount (from $3.3B to $1.9B) and in terms of total share of the digital grocery market (from 31.3% to 18.1%). - Share of grocery pickup sales continues to rise
—Curbside/shopper pick-up rose again to $6.2B (57.9%) of all digital grocery orders in January 2023, while delivery’s share declined to 42.2%. This represents an extension of the slow but steady increase in pickup’s share of digital grocery orders since January 2022, which saw 53.3% for pickup and 46.7% for delivery.
“Both grocery shoppers and senior industry executives seem to recognize the value of sustainability,” said Gaurav Pant, Chief Insights Officer of both Incisiv and Grocery Doppio. “Grocers have key focus areas and priorities for 2023 and view sustainability as a C-level priority. Meanwhile, more than a third of grocery shoppers say that sustainability is important to them, and that they are willing to pay more for products and practices that mirror their personal values.”
“Since Grocery Doppio began tracking the market, we have seen two irrepressible trends month after month,” said Charlie Kaplan, Chief Revenue Officer of Wynshop. “Grocers are taking more of the overall digital grocery market from third parties, and curbside pickup continues to gain in popularity with shoppers. Both trends underscore the importance to grocers of improving digital operations in 2023.”
