Inflation also hurts e-grocers

The electronic supermarket basket is getting smaller and smaller, as price increases lead consumers to order fewer products, the same as what happens when they visit a physical store.

At the same time, the share of private label products is growing, which are also increasingly chosen by consumers when ordering from online supermarkets.

However, it is worth noting that despite the fact that there are no longer any restrictions due to Covid-19, the sales of online supermarkets are holding steady (in real terms and not taking inflation into account), which means that the continuation of investment in this category of stores is a one-way street for businesses of organized food retail.

According to the data announced on Thursday by Convert Group, the turnover of electronic supermarkets during the first quarter of 2023 was 76 million euros, registering a 10% increase compared to the corresponding period last year. This amount does not include the players in so-called “quick commerce” (delivery of grocery orders in under 60 minutes), namely BOX, eFood Market, Instashop, Pop Market, Rabbit and Wolt Market, players who, according to Convert Group, are constantly gaining share in the Greek market. In contrast, the sales carried out through their cooperation with the above platforms by the Sklavenitis, AB Vassilopoulos, MyMarket, Masoutis, Kritikos, Thanopoulos and e-fresh.gr chains are included. These partnerships, however, are in some cases key to the success of electronic sales. A typical example is the exclusive collaboration of efood with Sklavenitis.

A 10% increase in turnover is essentially inflationary, since the average value of each product also increased by 10%. The price increases have led to an increase in orders by 9%, due to the market research that consumers do more easily by shopping at online supermarkets, but the number of products that consumers purchase is gradually decreasing. Therefore, while in January the average electronic basket contained 33.1 products, in February it had 32.8 and in March it dropped to 32.2 products. Compared to last year, the number of items in the average basket decreased in January-March 2023 by 10%.