Online Grocery Breaks Records Despite Budget Constraints | Fast Five Shorts

November extended its $10 billion online grocery sales streak to five months, according to a joint Brick Meets Click and Mercatus report.

November online grocery sales spiked, making the second time that such sales topped $12 billion.

Sales reached $12.3 billion.

That's up by more than 2.5 billion, or more than 28%, compared to November of 2024.

All three receiving methods delivery Click and Collect and Ship to Home saw sales increases last month.

Brick Meets Click attributed November's online grocery sales growth to higher order frequency users selecting multiple receiving methods as well as higher spending rates.

Chris, what are your thoughts on the reported $12.3 billion in e grocery volume in November?

Oh, and I'm absolutely gobsmacked by this.

This statistic.

This thing stopped me in my tracks.

This headline in in concert with the conversation we had with Chad last week.

On our annual awards show.

In addition to conversations I've had with many other people via Zoom in the last few weeks, my head is completely.

Flipped on what's happening.

I alluded to it before, and I think, I think I and I purposely want to put these two headlines right next to each other because I think there's a lot that can be gleaned.

From what we just talked about in terms of its applicability to this headline too.

Because here's the crazy thing about this statistic is consumers are budget constrained.

No doubt about it.

Everyone's reporting it.

E Grocery should not be going up because it's the more expensive way to get your groceries.

Like it shouldn't be happening if you're budget constrained.

So then you have to ask yourself, why is that?

You know, is it the time savings.

That allows you to that gives you back as a consumer?

Can you redeploy your efforts and your resources into something else?

Or is it the increasing level of price transparency when you're reordering the same items going or getting in the habit of ordering them time and time again from places that you trust, like Walmart, where the loyalty programs are very well understood.

And my hunch is it's some combination of the both that's driving this increase in behavior, as well as just the general acclimation of the younger generations to online grocery as well.

Which is why I go back to what I said in, you know, the last headline with when it comes to agentic AI online in Grocery in E Grocery, it is going to explode.

If we're already seeing this behavior now, when you add a Gen two gone to it, it's going to be one plus one equals Three in terms of the exponential impact.

So because the one axiom, and you've already said it on the show once, the one axiom you can take to the bank, which we talk about on the show all the time, we talk about it a lot, is everything always gravitates towards the lowest price when everything else is equal.

And for the Kraft macaroni and cheese box, there's no difference in it between where you want to buy it.

And so all things are equal and.

That'S how things are going to evolve.

Yeah.

I think the one thing that I wish we had more visibility to in this data set is how much of this is buy online pickup in store.

And the reason that I say that is because I think that is there's no cost for that.

You know, like e that's considered e grocery, but that's going to pick up your groceries, which I think a lot of people have started, a lot more people have started to do.

That's what we're hearing from a lot of the grocery retailers out there, that they've increased curbside pickup capacity from Target to Walmart to Albertsons to H E B.

Like everybody's working on how to do this because in a lot of ways it is, it is the easiest way for me to get my groceries.

And if you look at, I mean your, your, your most recent grocery experiences, I'd be interested in polling the listeners and even curious from your perspective, Chris, like, has your grocery experience in store been a good one as of late?

Like, it seem to me that there's been, you know, shortage of staff.

There's sometimes stuff isn't in stock and then you have to go ask somebody.

At least when I'm ordering groceries online, I know right away here's what is available and here's what's not.

What's not available, it's, it's the fastest possible way for me to get that, that to do checked off my list for the week is either ordering online or doing buy online pickup in store.

Plus, I think you have a lot of incentives that have been kicked in to get people who are, who have maybe started this behavior to continue this behavior.

You have Target giving several deals on Shipt.

You have Walmart plus giving a pretty significant amount of cash back in Walmart cash.

If you shop, if you shop, you know, from as a Walmart plus member or as a Walmart member.

And then you have Instacart giving deals to SNAP participants too, which I think all of this comes into one, fueling customer behavior to realize that Maybe it's worth a little bit of extra money to have your groceries delivered.

It's, it's a better experience overall when you just come pick it up and you don't have to deal with going and walking around the store and taking up time.

And I, I'd be curious, you know, what the, what the breakout is for cost for delivery over and what the value of people's time is worth.

And if they're just going to the point where they're like, this is something that I don't have to think about anymore.

One click and done and I pick it up on my schedule or have it delivered when it's convenient for me.

Yeah, I think what I'd say to that is, you know, the, the sales are up across the board.

So your point about curbside pickup, you know, potentially, but like the sales are up across the board.

Ship to home delivery.

Ship to home being.

I can never remember which one is shipped to home and which one's delivery, but one is like direct from Walmart, the other one is via Instacart.

So like, you know, so like, it's.

Just, they're up, it's just up across.

The board, which is just absolutely insane to me.

And the cost for that stuff is going down.

Like, that's a, that's the thing too that I think that isn't factored in.

Like I was saying, like, I just did a Walmart plus delivery and I got, you know, $15 back in Walmart cash for my grocery order for the week.

Like that.

Yeah, right there.

Paid $98 for the Walmart plus subscription at some point.

So like, I don't know that the cost is actually going down.

You know, it may feel that way, but I don't know that it actually is.

And I don't know if, I don't.

Know if it is across the market either.

Right.

So that's the other point of this.

But like, you know, it's just, it's.

Just so fascinating to me that it's right now and this is across all of grocery, right?

So Walmart is A, is 25% of the grocery business, but there's still 75% that's operating in a different way too.

So like, man, it's just, it's just wild.