- Australian online retailing worth AUD$8.7 billion in 2020.
- Online food retailing now accounts for 6% of total sales.
- The online food segment grew 58% between 2019 and 2020.
The COVID-inspired digital transformation of Australia?s retail sector has seen a 58% increase in online food sales in the past year, with Australian households spending more than AUD$800 million a month on online grocery shopping, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Online food sales, found within the grocery segment of ABS retail data, now account for 6% of total food sales across the country, which averaged more than AUD$12 billion on a monthly basis.
The double-digit growth in the online food retail sectors, while exacerbated in part by COVID, enforced measures to limit foot traffic in shopping centres has provided a near-term tailwind in terms of revenue growth for Australian food retailers.
The pickup and delivery of groceries, while not a novel development in retailing, does pose questions about the evolution of supermarkets as neighbour distribution centres of product.
The historical annualised growth rate of 23% in online food retailing over the last decade suggests that household spending on online food shopping will soon top a AUD$1 billion a month as the checkout moves to the front door.