Grocery shopping. It is that necessary chore every week or two that puts fresh food on your table but can be very time-consuming to go to the actual store.
Americans tend to go grocery shopping about 1.6 times per week. On top of that, each time out shopping takes up an average of 50 minutes.
So, you could be using up almost two hours per week on some occasions to do this. But, what if there was a better way to do grocery shopping?
There is, with online shopping, and more and more people have picked this up. Who does that? Let’s find out.
Older People
This is one of the main target markets for online grocery shopping, and the pandemic partially influenced this. Seniors are the most high-risk group to have severe effects from COVID, so this age group has needed to minimize all exposure in large indoor settings like grocery stores.
Well, that is where online shopping comes into play. With seniors in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, the amount of money spent on groceries via online shopping has increased by 49% since the pandemic began.
Seniors have somewhat surprisingly embraced this option, and staying home while still getting everything they need online keeps them safe.
Millennial Parents
Let’s face it,millennials are the generation that grew up with convenient online apps such as Uber, Airbnb, and pretty much all of social media. So, people in this age group are no strangers to doing business online.
On top of this, imagine those millennials having children that take up even more of their spare time. Well, these are some of the biggest users of online shopping apps, with 50% of millennial parents shopping online at least occasionally even before the pandemic began.
Without kids, 42% of millennials still use it occasionally but just 3% use it almost all of the time, compared to 11% using it all the time that have children.
Since these are pre-pandemic numbers, there have likely been even more people shopping online in this group since COVID hit.
Gen Z
Of course, it is hard to talk about anything online without discussing the generation that completely grew up with the internet, Gen Z. With this generation starting to enter college and the adult working force, they have to start covering their own bills like grocery shopping.
If online grocery shopping is going to survive, Gen Z will need to be on board. So far, there seems to be a mixed reaction in this generation but they do participate in it, with 15% of total grocery expenses from this generation of shoppers coming from online means.
Since this generation is still in the early stages of independence, it may be a few more years before there are more concrete stats about if this catches on with them but the signs so far say that some are definitely active participants.
Change Your Grocery Shopping
Are you one of those people who go in person to the grocery store multiple times a week and think grocery shopping takes up too much time? If so, you should give online grocery shopping a shot and discover the convenience that it can offer you.
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