Online grocery shopping has grown 39.7 per cent in value sales Australia over the 12 months to October according to new data released by Nielsen.
According to Nielsen’s quarterly Grocery Ecommerce Report, this growth was well ahead of the total grocery market, which grew in value sales by 2.7 per cent in the same period.
Online grocery has carved out a greater share of the Australian grocery market, gaining 1.0 percentage point to reach 3.8 per cent share of total grocery dollar sales, according to the researcher.
In the online space, Coles and Woolworths are the two key Australian players with about 85 per cent of total online grocery value sales.
However, Nielsen is predicting that Australians’ interest in Amazon and Amazon’s expansion of categories available online in the grocery space is set to shake up the online grocery landscape.
"The online grocery landscape is likely to continue its rapid growth as Australians get more comfortable with the experience and certainly as Amazon expands its offering," Nielsen head of retail Alfredo Costa says.
"Household brands from across dry grocery categories, such as biscuits, cereals, and confectionery are now available for purchase via Amazon, as is a range of health and organic items which may attract customers looking for specialty items they may not have seen in their local bricks and mortar stores.”
A recent Nielsen survey conducted in September 2018 found that 90 per cent of respondents were aware of Amazon, slightly lower than consumers’ awareness of Woolworths online (94 per cent) and Coles online (93 per cent).
Nielsen research shows that ‘Young Transitionals’, defined as households younger than 35 years old with no kids, increased the amount they spent online by 94.4 per cent in the last year, and consists of the greatest share of online grocery buyers.
‘Small-Scale Families’, households with children aged between 6-11, also grew by 44.9 per cent.
In terms of items bought online, frozen food, specifically frozen meals, ice cream and frozen vegetables, and confectionery continues to be the leading categories for online sales growth, both recording 57 per cent growth in the last year. These are followed by dry grocery, with 48.5 per cent growth.
