Grocery shopping goes digital during coronavirus pandemic

A new Waitrose report shines a light on how the coronavirus outbreak has turned the UK into a nation of online shoppers.

Based on OnePoll research of 2,000 Brits (not just Waitrose customers), it found that 77% of people now do at least some of their grocery shopping online, compared to 61% a year ago.

60%, meanwhile, purchase groceries online more frequently since the pandemic, with 41% citing convenience as the reason and one in five saying that they hadn’t considered it before Covid-19.

The most marked increase is within the over-55 age group, where regular online shoppers have risen from 8% in 2019 to 23% in 2020.

James Bailey, Waitrose & Partners Executive Director, says: “Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, there are few retailers that wouldn’t have predicted the continued growth of e-commerce relative to physical shops.”

“But what would have previously been a gradual upward climb in demand has - with the outbreak of Covid-19 - turned into a trajectory more reminiscent of scaling Everest.”

Check out the full report here.