BARRINGTON, ILL. – The US online grocery market generated $8.1 billion in sales during October, driven by $6.4 billion from the pickup/delivery segment and $1.7 billion from ship-to-home, according to the Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey for Oct. 29-30.

“As the number of new COVID-19 cases in October continued to decline, key performance indicators (KPIs) for monthly active users, order frequency, and average order value are rebalancing from the record highs of 2020 and now provide a more stable and sizable base for building and forecasting the business in 2022 and beyond,” said David Bishop, a partner in Brick Meets Click.

During October, about 50% of U.S. households (63.8 million) bought groceries online, whether just a few items or a full basket of goods. To put that in perspective, the size of the current monthly active user (MAU) base remained larger than the total number of households in August 2019 who had placed at least one online grocery order during the past year.

Pickup continued to be the most popular way to receive online orders in October, with a monthly active user (MAU) base of 33.4 million households. Ship-to-home’s MAU base had 29.8 million households but has contracted each month since July 2021. Delivery served 26.2 million households in October but has experienced more volatility in month-over-month changes lately.

“While the vast majority of online grocery shoppers still prefer to use only one method – pickup, delivery, or ship-to-home – over 30% of MAUs chose to use multiple methods to get their online grocery needs met in October 2021,” said Bishop. “And, the share of MAUs that received online orders via multiple methods has grown by over 16 percentage points since the start of the pandemic.”