Same-Day Delivery Used by 30% of U.S. Consumers
ROCKVILLE, Md. — Americans who desire convenience and make use of online ordering are causing the rise of same-day delivery services. According to market research Packaged Facts' report American Consumers in 2020, approximately 30 percent of today's consumers have ordered items online for same-day delivery in the past 12 months, excluding foods ordered for immediate consumption, such as pizza.
"Same-day delivery is already part of the daily lives of a substantial minority of online consumers," stated Packaged Facts Research Director David Sprinkle. "Over the next five years, same-day delivery is expected to enter the online shopping experience of many more consumers, and become a more prominent part of our retail culture."
Amazon and Walmart receive the most requests for same-day delivery. Data from Packaged Facts' August 2015 national consumer survey shows that 44 percent of consumers have purchased products online from Amazon for same-day home delivery, while 37 percent requested the same from Walmart. However, the rising popularity of online delivery services such as Instacart and other retailers could challenge for greater market share in coming years, especially when it comes to the delivery of perishable products such as grocery items.
Target, which has 24 percent of consumers making same-day delivery purchases online, could be the greatest threat to the market dominance of Amazon and Walmart, Packaged Facts said. Target recently teamed with Instacart to test grocery delivery in the Minneapolis area starting Sept. 15. The service would provide consumers with household, pet and baby products that are delivered in a one- or two-hour window depending on shopper preference.
The market for online grocery delivery is increasingly competitive, according to the Packaged Facts report, Online Food Shopping and Grocery Delivery in the U.S.: Future of Food Retailing, which calculates that online grocery sales of food and beverages exceeded $23 billion in 2014, a 22-percent increase compared to sales in 2013. During the next five years, online grocery service providers are expected to develop models that solve lingering logistics problems while being profitable for the operators. As this occurs, online services will become more widely available throughout the country and consumers will become more confident in shopping for food and beverages online.
Packaged Facts predicts that these developments will take place in leaps and bounds, causing the market to advance at uneven rates, starting at 49 percent in 2015 and peaking at 67 percent. It also expects the growth rate to gradually drop to the low double digits by the end of 2019 as the online share share of grocery sales begins to reach critical mass at approximately 12 percent.