In late February of this year, when the pandemic had no bearing on most Americans’ day-to-day, CivicScience had already observed that grocery delivery adoption was increasing substantially.

As the pandemic started to become our (very real) reality, grocery delivery adoption has only taken off more.

Rebased among Americans aware of grocery delivery (which is 96% of all consumers 18+), use of grocery delivery services has risen dramatically, from 17% the week of March 1, to 27% as of this week’s to-date numbers. 

Though we started to observe disinterest slightly increasing and intent declining recently, this week’s (to-date) numbers show that grocery delivery will continue to be on the up and up. So long as brands and services keep their act together, that is.

Good news: it does appear that the customer experience of grocery delivery is starting to improve. In a weekly study beginning the week of March 22, new data show that not only are more people trying to place online grocery orders, but as of the past two weeks, people are having more success doing so. Delays and issues causing people to not be able to confirm an order have declined recently. That’s a good sign.

Perhaps, all in all, this could be part of a bigger trend that Americans are accepting as the new way of grocery shopping. CivicScience not only studies trend adoption, but trend perception–how consumers think a trend will or will not proliferate–as a major product or service indicator. Respondents indicating that grocery delivery will remain ‘niche’ has fallen by nearly fifteen percentage points since the first week of March.

Lastly, CivicScience checked in on adoption of Amazon Prime Now grocery delivery. 

Amazon Prime Now adoption among U.S. adults ticked up by 5 percentage points since last quarter.

The future of grocery delivery looks better than good. But consumers’ experience will have to be top-notch (and seamless) to keep it going. CivicScience will continue to track this trend. Our next grocery study will look at new adoption numbers for Instacart.