E-Grocery Is Seeing Considerable Growth, But All Devices Are Not Created Equal

With eCommerce giants such as Amazon and Walmart dominating the eGrocery game, the rules of errand engagement are changing. ContentSquare analyzed more than 92 million sessions spanning a little over three months across grocery stores and other retailers to examine these changes in action.

Shoppers are increasingly turning to the internet to fulfill their grocery needs.

More and more consumers are integrating digital platforms into their daily routine. The online grocery sector is no exception. In fact, just a one month jump from August to September saw an increase to the average conversion rate of 5.74%, and October is already recording an increase of 3.05% over September. Over the three months analyzed the average conversion rate increased by 9% across desktop, mobile, and tablet. Consumers are proving to be hungry to get grocery shopping done online. 

Shoppers are actually spending more time perusing the online supermarket shelves than they are browsing for clothes and accessories, spending an average of 1.3x more time filling their grocery carts on desktop. People aren’t just window shopping either. Grocery conversions proved to be even higher than retail clothes and accessories, beating the popular eCommerce destination by 357% on desktop and 33.9% on mobile.

eGrocery Conversion rates on desktop have come out on top, but trail behind on mobile

Even though growth is observed across the board, all devices have not proved to be equal. Conversions on a desktop have outpaced all other retail industries by at least 2x with a rate of 8.86%, while the mobile conversion rate is steadfastly in the middle of the pack, coming in at 1.46%. Tablet CVR also came out on top with a conversion rate average of 6.83%, but with less of a noticeable lead over other online retailers.

This isn’t exactly surprising news, especially considering the amount of time spent browsing on each of these devices. Consumers are spending about twice as long browsing grocery sites on desktop and tablet versus mobile.

Even though the grocery retail sector has seen a precipitous growth on desktop, mobile conversions are still lagging. What works for desktop does not necessarily work for mobile. In order to understand what is hindering mobile conversions the pain points need to be identified. Where are customers dropping off and why?