Online supermarkets take over the delivery market

The popularity for online grocery shopping has skyrocketed last year. This is according to the survey of online search behavior conducted by the research firm RouteLogic. In one year, online supermarkets saw the search volume for their delivery services rise 195%, while the popularity of the physical supermarket fell by almost 50%. So having groceries delivered by a traditional supermarket like Albert Heijn or Jumbo is not nearly as obvious anymore. Traditional supermarkets will have to pull out all the stops to keep up in this market. Not to lose market share to the online supermarkets.

2022 is the year for online supermarkets

In fact, consumers are searching Google for the services of online supermarkets (much) more often each month. Online supermarkets like Picnic and Flink are preferred over the delivery services of traditional supermarkets when consumers search for a grocery delivery service. In 2021, online supermarkets already won over the traditional supermarket, but in 2022 the final blow seems to have been delivered. In one year, search volume for the four largest online supermarkets grew 195%. While the search volume to the delivery services of the three largest physical supermarkets decreased by 46%.

Huge growth Flink and Getir

That 2022 is the year for online supermarkets is something flash delivery companies Flink and Getir are especially happy about. Indeed, it is striking that popularity for their services has risen the hardest. Whereas Flink only had a search volume of 1,000 in August 2021, that grew to the 90,500 mark in 2022. They are also very proud of this at Flink let Flink's spokesman Stefan de Bruin tell us in a response to our research.

"Flink is doing well in the Netherlands. We are active in 40 cities and now have 64 locations. More than two-thirds of flash delivery users are using Flink. We are, needless to say, very proud of that."

Can traditional supermarkets still counter this trend?

However, the traditional supermarkets are not sitting still and are also developing their own delivery services. In August PLUS announced that they were going to cooperate with Thuisbezorgd.nl. This is a six-month pilot at five PLUS supermarkets. In this way groceries will be delivered directly to your home. If the pilot is a success, the flash delivery service will become available at all PLUS supermarkets. Albert Heijn already cooperated with Thuisbezorgd.nl as well as with Deliveroo. However, Deliveroo will probably leave the Netherlands and Albert Heijn will have to continue with only Thuisbezorgd. Together with its competitor PLUS.

Jumbo has partnered with online supermarket Gorillas. Jumbo now supplies about 1,600 products to the flash delivery service. In addition, Jumbo is also opening its own first home delivery hub at the end of this year. The home delivery location is currently being built on an industrial estate in Emmen. From this location, groceries will be delivered home by a team of 45 delivery drivers.

Whether these developments will affect the popularity of the delivery services of traditional supermarkets remains to be seen. But the delivery service market is certainly not standing still!

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