Online shopping’s pandemic-induced boom has been huge and well-documented. Faced with stay-at-home mandates that began during the first wave of COVID-19 in March, many consumers began to load up on groceries and other essentials in great numbers, some for the first time.
Orders swelled to the point that bottlenecks, out-of-stocks, and delivery delays became commonplace. Amazon Prime, Instacart, Uber, Speed Shopper, Lyft and other apps saw big increases, and brick-and-mortar supermarkets rushed to create online or click-and-collect options on their own sites or to partner with platforms like Shopify. Specialty food producers also went direct-to-consumer in growing numbers, upgrading or developing their own sites or partnering with platforms. “One of the biggest silver linings I keep coming back to is this idea that the food industry has been slow to adapt to change. We’ve been slow to embrace technology. If anything, this is forcing us to realize that we can do things differently, and that we can incorporate online ordering and curbside pickup, or we can incorporate electronic inventory in our warehouses. This is a great opportunity to force some change into a stagnant industry,” said an owner of a wholesale specialty business consultancy interviewed as part of SFA’s annual State of the Specialty Food Industry research.
The big question is how much this shift will stick. Industry reports indicate that online shopping will remain high now that consumers have adapted to a behavior change and with COVID’s second wave growing across the U.S. Some brick-and-mortar retailers are considering how to rethink part of their footprint for fulfillment of online orders.
