COVID-19 accelerated CPG/grocery eCommerce across the board, and a recent SmartCommerce survey indicates that it’s not slowing down any time soon. The March survey asked 600 consumers about their online grocery shopping habits and found that the number of people who have purchased groceries online since COVID has increased to nearly 80%, and it’s not slowing down. Nearly 70% of consumers said they’d purchased groceries online in the last month.
The key issues consumers complained with initial pandemic-driven online grocery shopping like delayed delivery, items sold out and canceled orders are also improving, with 72% of consumers saying their last order was easy to make.
The number of people who have bought groceries online since pre-COVID has increased by nearly 25%.
On Cart Abandonment (they’re actually cart-building!) and Checkout
The March survey also warned retailers to be careful calling carts “abandoned,” – that consumers are “cart building.” Only 31.5% of consumers said they had already bought the last item they put in a cart (from any location, including retailer.com). The rest have stored it in their cart to buy later (43.7%), or added it for further consideration (20.9%).
Only 31.5% of consumers said they have already bought the last item they put in a cart.
And when it comes to checking out, the days of cart-building on mobile then moving to desktop to complete the order appear to be ending. 54.5% of consumers said they completed checkout for their last online order on their mobile phone.
54.% of consumers said they completed checkout for their last online order on their mobile phone.
Men Love Adding Products to their Online Carts
Contrary to just about every stereotype, ever, MEN are most likely to report “loving” the feeling of putting a product in the cart. 40.1% of men said they “love” the feeling vs. just 22.6% of women. Overall, though, online shopping feels great to both genders, with 72% of men and 64% of women saying they either “love” the feeling or find it “fun.”
Men are most likely to report “loving” the feeling of putting a product in the cart.
According to our survey, men are also more likely to take action right away when they see something in an online ad. While both men and women regularly drop a product into a cart so as not to forget it, men are twice as likely to then buy it immediately, while women are far more likely to try to make a mental note to buy it later.
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