Online grocery sales growth in April outpaces inflation

Online grocery shopping is becoming more and more popular.

Online grocery sales increased dramatically in April 2024.

According to new data from Signifyd Ecommerce Pulse, online grocery sales were up 22% year-on-year in April 2024, while the annual supermarket inflation rate was just 0.5% for the month.

Close analysis of the digital profiles attached to grocery orders indicates that this increase in sales was due to a slowdown in grocery price growth, which attracted 18% of new online grocery shoppers. The number of online grocery transactions increased by 34% and product volume by 29% compared to the same month a year earlier.

However, the average amount spent by each shopper per order in April was down 9% compared to April 2023. Cart size, or the number of items per online order, dropped by 4%.

“There are more online grocery transactions taking place compared to last year, and this is due to the influx of new customers,” said a Signifyd data analyst Phelim Killough, who produces the monthly Pulse report. “On average, consumers are buying less as these new customers test the channel and also demonstrate continued price sensitivity with prices still elevated but stable.”

(Read more: Online grocery sales increased 4% year-over-year in April; The flight to mass retailers continues)

The online grocery category’s 22% sales growth significantly beat the 9% year-over-year sales growth across all online verticals, which was 9% in April, according to Signifyd’s Pulse Data.

E-commerce sales in April 2024 compared to April 2023

Overall, five of the eight key retail industries reported positive results in April compared to the previous year. Apart from groceries – clothing, auto parts, electronics and home appliances – sales of all goods outperformed April 2023. In the entertainment, luxury and beauty segments, there were slight year-on-year declines.

Fraud trends are heading in a disturbing direction

According to Signifyd, fraud pressure across all industries has increased by 24% compared to April 2023. Fraud pressure is a measure of the rise and fall of orders that Signifyd’s AI models deem to be very risky and therefore likely to be fraudulent.

The increase in payment fraud has been accompanied by an increase in consumer fraud, such as false claims that a package never arrived or that an order received was not as described on the retail site or was otherwise defective.

According to Signifyd, the number of fraudulent consumer claims has been increasing since the Covid-19 pandemic and is sometimes growing faster than traditional payment fraud.

Signifyd Ecommerce Pulse data comes from transactions across the Signifyd commerce network of thousands of e-commerce retailers and brands.