Dive Brief:
- Ahold Delhaize has committed to doubling its e-commerce sales by 2020, Supermarket News reported.
- For 2016, Ahold Delhaize reported e-commerce sales of 2.3 billion euros.
- According to Hanneke Faber, Ahold's chief e-commerce and innovation officer, Peapod grocery delivery customers spend about 1.8 times that of customers who only shop in store.
Dive Insight:
The potential for growth of Ahold Delhaize's e-commerce business stems in part from the relatively small number of consumers who regularly buy their groceries online. That number is quickly increasing, but the retailer still has a large base of consumers to target to sign up for Peapod.
But having an online grocery shopping platform isn't just something that's nice to have. Amazon recently unveiled its Amazon Go stores, which will be brick-and-mortar grocery stores with no checkouts. Instead, shoppers use an app to select and pay for purchases. Now that Amazon is making the leap from e-commerce to brick-and-mortar, traditionally in-store grocery retailers will need to embrace e-commerce sooner than later to remain competitive.