Waitrose Sees ‘Irreversible’ Shift Towards Online Grocery Shopping

 

Namnews, 20th August 2020

The new study by Waitrose has found that one in four people are now shopping online for groceries at least once a week – double the amount seen in 2019. Whilst the coronavirus lockdown has been the catalyst behind the shift, the supermarket suggests this change in buying behaviour is now “irreversible”.

The How Britain Shops Online report from Waitrose also found that 77% of people now do at least some of their grocery shopping online, compared to 61% a year ago.

The study highlights that the most marked increase in online grocery shopping is within the over-55 age group, where regular online shoppers have nearly trebled from 8% in 2019 to 23% this year.

These habits are likely to have been altered permanently with 40% of people polled by Waitrose saying they will shop online more in the long term than they did before the outbreak. Meanwhile, nearly 20% of people stated they’ll use a wider variety of online services such as fast delivery and click & collect post-lockdown, whilst 25% said they’ll do bigger grocery shops online in the future.

“Even before the Covid-19 pandemic there were few retailers that wouldn’t have predicted the continued growth of e-commerce relative to physical shops,” said Waitrose Executive Director James Bailey.

“But what would have previously been a gradual upward climb in demand has, with the outbreak of Covid-19, turned into a trajectory more reminiscent of scaling Everest.

“One in four of us now do a grocery shop online at least once a week, double the amount in 2019. Because online shopping quickly becomes habitual these changes are irreversible.”

Waitrose is mid-way through £100m investment in its online business to ramp capacity after ending its partnership with Ocado. The retailer predicts online will account for 20% of its total business, up from 5% pre-Covid, with Waitrose.com currently on track to treble its size to become a £1bn operation by the end of the year.