Food and beverages are the fastest growing category for Amazon in the United States: a third of online orders for groceries are made at the retail giant. Nevertheless, the category remains very small, even in the American home market.
Online food sales less than three percent
Of all the food and drinks sold in the United States this year, only 2.8 % will be ordered online, eMarketer estimates. Amazon gets around a third of all these orders, but still it remains the least strong category for the online retailer, accounting for ‘only’ 4.75 billion dollar (4 billion euro). The only category Amazon has less control over the American consumer is in the sale of cars and car parts.
However, this is changing: in the US, food is the fastest growing category for the Seattle retail giant, with a predicted growth of 40.1 % in 2018. Nearly 60 % of all US internet users have already bought groceries in the past year. Amazon, Coresight Research measured in March. Shoppers mainly buy preservable food, One Click Retail calculated. In the second quarter, Amazon is said to have sold 140 million dollar in cold drinks (+36 %), coffee accounted for another 135 million dollars (+40 %). Four out of five most sold grocery items at Amazon were coffee capsules. Other fast-growing categories for Amazon are: fashion (+38.2 % on an annual basis), drugs and cosmetics (+37.9 %) and home decoration (+37.2 %) for 2018, eMarketer predicts.
People also bought small quantities on the e-commerce platform (43.2 %), while only 12 % bought (almost) all their shopping there. Obstacles to buying online turn out to be delivery times – American consumers want to be for food delivery within the day – just like the need to really see and feel fresh food.
To change that, Amazon is using its organic supermarket chain Whole Foods: the online retailer encourages cross pollination. Among other things, by giving Prime members an extra 10 % discount on promo offers at Whole Foods as well as giving shoppers at Whole Foods a 10 dollar voucher for Prime Day.
