Ecommerce and grocery shopping

Technically they are called “Fast moving consumer goods” or “FMCG” [for those who love acronyms], practically they are the fresh foods one usually buys in farmer markets, supermarkets and grocery stores. Online vendors of these kind of products still have to work hard to compete with the traditional physical shops and conquer their market share, but in some countries the online grocery shopping is starting to spread. Here are some data.

Despite the widespread use of the Internet and an always-online lifestyle, shopping for groceries online appears as something that culturally has not been completely metabolised. Anyway, there are some countries where the online shopping of fresh items is reaching very interesting levels. South Korea, for example, is the uncontested leading country in this field with an astonishing 19.1% of groceries bought online in 2018 [an almost unbelievable 40% more than 2016]. Another incredible result is the doubling of the Chinese online grocery market in the last two years, a market that today has reached 14% of share and the second place of the ranking. The third county in the ranking is Japan with its 7.7% market share.

What about Europe? Apparently, there are four European countries in the Top10 ranking related to the online groceries shopping, in the order: UK is fourth with 7.2%, France has the fifth place with 5.6%, Spain and Germany are respectively at seventh and eighth place with 2.4% and 1.5%. Here is the complete ranking.

[via: Statista]

Fast moving consumer goods online shopping is a developing market, be ready! If you have – or are thinking of creating – a business in some of the related sectors and you are interested in knowing the subject further, I would love to hear from you.

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