Video: eGrocery Insights - November 2025

Welcome to the November episode of US eGrocery Sales Trends from Mercatus, featuring David Bishop, Partner at Brick Meets Click. This final show from Mercatus closes out a 5+-year run of analyzing the shifts in America’s online grocery market.

Watch the full episode to learn:

• How SNAP benefit disruptions affected November’s results
• Why Delivery sales surged without negatively impacting Pickup
• What drove the dip in repeat-intent for November
• How Amazon continues to reshape Ship-to-Home expectations
• What 5+ years of eGrocery data reveal about where the market is headed

Summary of the Video

Top-line: November was supposed to be a stress test for lower-income households online.

• Delayed and partial SNAP payments, rising costs, and growing anxiety had many folks expecting a sharp pullback.
• Instead, headline eGrocery spending stayed strong and average order values actually climbed.

Why the YOY gains? While lower-income households did cut back online, higher-income households expanded their online share enough to offset the drop.

A sneak peak at the November’s numbers by fulfiilment method.

• Delivery rebounded, but Pickup also hit a new high. This is a critical point for regional grocers who rely on Pickup’s lower cost structure.
• David breaks down how Walmart, Amazon, and shifting consumer expectations are reshaping each method.
• He also explains what regional grocers can do to strengthen Pickup through faster cycle times and true “on-the-way-home” convenience.

Understanding November’s dip in repeat intent.

• David adds context to the decline by explaining how a surge of first-time shoppers dragged the metric down, while the most established users — those ordering four or more times in three months— continue to grow and now make up nearly 60% of all Pickup and Delivery MAUs.
• These “super users” spend roughly 50% more per order than newcomers, which makes retaining them a critical priority heading into 2026.

Growth is structural, not seasonal

• As the base of monthly active users continues to rise, the share of U.S. households shopping online reaching roughly 80%, and order frequency has increased year over year for 15 straight months.
• All signs suggest that the online grocery’s expansion is structural, not just seasonal.

The episode closes with a reflection on the last past year of eGrocery data and how far the market has come.

• David names membership-driven Delivery as the defining trend of 2025 and calls out the Ship-to-Home growth driven by Amazon’s same-day Fresh–grocery as what to watch in 2026.