The advent of game-changing technology has enhanced the convenience of online grocery shopping in recent years to the delight of consumers. Product information is searchable at a consumer’s fingertips via smartphone. User-friendly retailer apps assist the time-strapped and cost-conscious shopper. Fresh, quality foods are delivered to the home with the click of a button. It has become undeniable that the lines between real and virtual marketplaces are increasingly blurred.
After years of slow growth, analysts and experts are predicting grocery e-commerce sales to pick up significantly within the next two years. Online grocery sales are predicted to increase 21.1% annually through 2018, according to research from BI Intelligence, a research service from Business Insider, New York, compared to 3.1% for physical supermarkets. In 2015, UK-based Kantar Retail found shoppers spent between 3-4% of their grocery budgets online—up from just 1% three years ago.