Unpacking May 2025 eGrocery Performance: Key Insights for Retail Leadership

The U.S. online grocery market continues its dynamic growth, with May 2025 sales reaching $8.7 billion, a significant 27% increase year-over-year according to the Brick Meets Click Grocery Shopper Survey fielded May 30-31, 2025, and sponsored by Mercatus. This surge, largely propelled by the Delivery segment, offers crucial insights for grocery retail executives aiming to expand their online business.

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Delivery Drives Dominant Growth

Delivery sales were a primary driver of the overall eGrocery expansion in May 2025, experiencing a remarkable improvement of over 70% compared to last year, reaching $3.9 billion.

• This robust growth is attributed to a substantial increase in monthly active users (MAU), a double-digit rise in order frequency, and higher average order values (AOV).
• Consequently, Delivery's share of eGrocery sales jumped nearly 13 points year-over-year, settling at 45.4%.

Important context: Delivery’s high growth rate for May is an outlier and reflects the cumulative impact of wave after wave of promotional activity that began fueling stronger sales for the service method in June 2024.

• While these promotions generally appeal to existing customers, we can see that Walmart’s effort is also helping the retailer to attract new customers.
• Overall, the wide adoption of memberships/subscriptions over the past year has been a key factor in motivating increased usage of delivery services and higher order frequency.

Pickup and Ship-to-Home See Shifts

As Delivery soared, Pickup sales experienced a 3.6% year-over-year decline to $3.2 billion in May 2025.

• This dip occurred despite mid-single-digit growth in Pickup's MAU base, which was offset by a drop in order frequency and slightly lower AOV.
• As a result, Pickup's sales share decreased by over 11 points compared to last year, finishing at 37.2%.

Conversely, Ship-to-Home saw a notable 20.7% year-over-year increase in May 2025, reaching $1.5 billion. This growth appears to be an indirect benefit of the Delivery boom, particularly within the Mass retail sector.

• Factors contributing to this include the ability to purchase products from pure-play retailers at competitive prices and the availability of free shipping from an expanding range of providers.
• Despite gains in MAU, order frequency, and AOV, Ship-to-Home's sales share slightly decreased by 90 basis points, ending the month at 17.5%.

Evolving Customer Engagement and Order Frequency

The overall base of monthly active users for eGrocery expanded by more than 10% in May 2025 year-over-year.

• Notably, Delivery's MAU base grew at three times that rate, and Walmart's MAU base for all three online grocery methods expanded approximately one and a half times faster than the overall rate.
• In addition, overall eGrocery order frequency also rose over 10% year over year, primarily due to increases in Delivery orders.

Customer Satisfaction Climbs (But so does cross-shopping)

Customer satisfaction, as measured by expectations for continued usage, showed significant improvement in May 2025.

• The repeat intent rate increased by 900 basis points year over year, reaching 66.8%.
• This positive trend was observed across all customer types, from first-time users to frequent shoppers, and across key retail formats like Mass and Grocery (including Supermarkets and Hard Discounters), as well as Delivery and Pickup services.

Ensuring customer satisfaction is paramount as cross-shopping continues to intensify.

• The rate of cross-shopping between Grocery and Mass rose by over two points in May 2025, reaching 33.7%.
• The comparable rate between Grocery and Walmart increased by over four points year-over-year, indicating that one out of four households in Grocery's MAU base also placed an online grocery order with Walmart during May 2025, up from one out of five last year.

Message from the Sponsor‍

"These results show how quickly shopper demand has shifted to Delivery over the last 12 months, raising the stakes for regional grocers,” states Mark Fairhurst, Chief Growth Marketing Officer, Mercatus. In addition, Fairhurst emphasizes these two key points

• While collaborating with delivery platforms is often essential, grocers must ensure these partnerships strengthen – not weaken - their connection with the customer.
• Regional grocers who prioritize controlling the digital experience, leveraging Pickup's strengths, and building trust through personalized experiences will be best positioned to retain loyalty and market share as the market evolves.
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About this consumer research

The Brick Meets Click Grocery Shopping Survey is an ongoing independent research initiative created and conducted by the team at Brick Meets Click and sponsored by Mercatus.

Brick Meets Click conducted the most recent survey on May 30-31, 2025, with 1,488 adults, 18 years and older, who participated in the household’s grocery shopping, and a similar survey in May 2024 (n=1,724). Results are adjusted based on internet usage among U.S. adults to account for the non-response bias associated with online surveys. Responses are geographically representative of the U.S. and weighted by age and income to reflect the national population of adults, 18 years and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

‍The three receiving methods for online grocery orders are defined as follows:

• Delivery includes orders received from a first- or third-party provider like Instacart, Shipt or the retailer's own employees.
• Pickup includes orders that are received by customers either inside or outside a store or at a designated location/locker.
• Ship-to-Home includes orders that are received via common or contract carriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.

For more information about subscribing to the full monthly report, visit the eGrocery Monthly Sales report page.